ABC.. Any Australian under 25 will need to be either working, studying or training under a new plan agreed to by the Federal Government and state and territory leaders.
All leaders have also agreed at today's Council of Australian Governments Meeting (COAG) in Hobart to a national target of a 90 per cent year 12 retention rate by 2015.
Announcing the new scheme, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it was necessary to ensure young people avoid slipping into long-term unemployment as the global financial crisis pushes the jobless rate higher.
"We cannot allow and we will not allow ... the skills and training needed by a growing modern economy to skip a generation because of the global recession," he said.
"We don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past whereby young people who lose their job today become the long-term unemployed of tomorrow."
Those under 17 must be either working, training or in school, while those between 17 and 20 who are unemployed must be either training or undertaking some form of study.
The Government has guaranteed those under 25 who are not working a training place to help them find a new job.
The Government also announced strengthened conditions for those receiving Centrelink allowances.
Anyone under 20 who has not completed year 12 must be either studying or in a training program to qualify for youth allowance.
Those same conditions will apply to parents receiving Family Tax Benefit A.
Mr Rudd says the scheme is expected to help around 135,000 people.
