According to a recent article released by the Australian Bureau of statistics (ABS) Australian Social Trends, if Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had the same levels of education as non-Indigenous people, the gap in labour force participation would decrease by half.
“While health and remoteness have some effect, we found that for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people, education was the single largest contributor to being in the labour market,” Graeme Brown ABS spokesperson commented.
Mr Brown explained that the ABS found that when there were similar education, health and geographic characteristics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as for non-Indigenous people, the gap in labour force participation dropped by two-thirds, falling from 19.9 to 6.3 percent. Mr Brown mentioned that even when you take into consideration the factors that affect labour force outcomes being the same, Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people were still twice as likely as non-Indigenous people to be unemployed – 10.8 per cent compared with 5.5 per cent.