Currently, we employ over 8,000 young people in 594 sites across the country, including 142 sites in regional and rural areas. Our aim is to employ thousands more over the next few years, both in our own services and through the hundreds of partner organisations and businesses we work with in our local communities.

The Y has been working hard to develop a new approach to supporting young peoples’ career portfolios and securing them work, which we know have been seriously disrupted and affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

There are 3.3 million young Australians aged 15-24, with the transition from education to employment made even more difficult by the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs during COVID-19. Unless we act now to address these inequities, we may have an entire generation we fail to ensure are not suffering from unemployment or underemployment.

Our aspiration is to employ thousands more young people through the establishment of a new Y Career Agency that also helps create long-term employment pathways for young people in the ‘caring’ industry in particular. Watch this space!’