The introductions below are to three speeches on the topic of 'unemployment' given by a senior student in the final year of school. Each speech was delivered to a different audience:
Match each speech to the audience you think it was intended for. Explain one or more language features of each text that helped you to decide.
My 13-year sentence is almost up and I'll soon be released from this institution. I thought I might get some time off for good behaviour but there was the little matter with the water bomb in Year 9 and that case of mistaken identity over the swimming carnival incident last year. And I still protest my innocence!
So the big world awaits. I am ready! I have an impressive piece of paper, which could have been better if I had paid more attention in Physics, Geography and Maths. But I have survived the mental torture of Shakespeare, quadratic equations and endless school assemblies. Now all I have to do is avoid the unemployment queues. And that's not so easy when the unemployment rate for youth is a massive 14.5%!
To lessen stress, I plan to be philosophical and consider the big picture. Unemployment always has its ups and downs. Did you know that in 1968—back when our ancestors roamed the Earth—the unemployment rate for 15–20-year-olds was a mere 1.5%!
1968, a momentous year in Modern History. The student uprisings in Paris, the ‘Prague Spring' uprising in Czechoslovakia, Black power salutes at the Mexico Olympics and Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt's disappearance while swimming at Portsea. Very momentous events. In my study of 1968 I came across another very interesting piece of information. It was the first time that the Federal Department of Employment gave detailed figures of unemployment according to age. Now you may find this rather trivial but as a teenager and soon to be school leaver I was more than intrigued.
Did you know that in 1968 the unemployment figure for 15–20-year-olds in western Sydney was 1.5%? Today the figure is 14.5%!
I know you are all probably more concerned right now about what happens at high school than what happens when you leave. Maybe finishing high school seems a long way away. Maybe you don't think the word 'unemployment' has much to do with you. But take some advice from someone about to join the Centrelink queue, it will arrive sooner than you think.
Now is the time to start preparing for life after school, to start building skills that will help you be successful in getting a job and avoid unemployment. It will take your mind off those stories about Year Sevens being dunked in toilets, pushed out of canteen lines and used as wall cushions in the corridors.
'What's wrong with being unemployed? you ask. Maybe you think you will have time to relax and enjoy yourself. But let me tell you why unemployment is really not a career move.