Tough love for jobless youth: PM

Julia Gillard has warned of "tough love" ahead for young Australians shirking work and revealed the Federal Budget will unveil a raft of measures to help satisfy WA's hunger for skilled workers.

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend West, the Prime Minister said it was vital Australia used the mining boom to bolster the skills of the WA resources sector workforce while ensuring non-mining Perth businesses could fill job vacancies.

And Ms Gillard has all but confirmed the May 10 Budget will increase the skilled migration intake to help WA mining companies get maximum benefit from burgeoning global demand for Australia's vast natural resources.

She was speaking ahead of her three-day trip to WA next week, beginning on Tuesday when she holds a community cabinet in Fremantle.

Citing the 10 per cent youth unemployment rate in Kwinana as a prime example of the untapped reserve of workers, she foreshadowed further changes to vocational education so that more school leavers had certificate three and certificate four qualifications.

"It would be a tragedy if a 16 or 17-year-old kid in Kwinana today ends up never getting an apprenticeship, never getting an opportunity and they're still unemployed when they are 25 or 30 and they're set up for a lifetime of disadvantage while at the same time businesses right across WA scream out for more workers," she said.

As well as ramping up programs that turn trade assistants into fully fledged tradespeople, the Government intends expanding programs that train and place jobseekers, building on the $200 million Critical Skills Investment Fund.

Tighter control of the dole, Youth Allowance and the Disability Support Pension is also looming.

"Earn or learn is not a slogan, it's the description of the program," she said.

"Simply dropping out, sitting at home watching endless hours of daytime TV is not an option.

"This is a nation where we need to distribute opportunity but opportunity comes with responsibility. That requires assistance to people but it will also require tough love to get some people moving."

But she also acknowledged that while the long-term ambition was to fill more jobs with Australians, there was also a need for more foreign workers through skilled immigration and the Section 457 visa program.

Chamber of Commerce and Industry research shows WA will need 488,500 extra workers over the next decade. On current population trends, the projected shortfall will be 210,000 workers.