Long-term unemployment on the rise

The percentage of people unemployed for one year or more increased from 16 percent in July 2009 to 18 percent during the same period last years based on figures reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Long-term unemployed people said that the most common main difficulty in finding a job was 'too many applicants for available jobs' (14 percent), followed by 'too far to travel/transport problems' (13 percent) and 'own health or disability' (13 percent).

However, majority or about 82 percent of respondents said that of unemployed people are short-term unemployed (unemployed for less than one year), with one in four having been unemployed for less than four weeks.

Of those unemployed for under eight weeks, 20 percent reported 'no difficulties at all' in finding new work and the most common main difficulty reported was 'too many applicants for available jobs' at 13 percent.In total, of all unemployed people, 21 percent had never worked before, and 17 percent had worked, but not in the last two years