Many will embark on further study or vocational education, some on apprenticeships, some on their longer-term careers, and all on the first of many adventures of their adult lives.  

The initial work experiences of our young people straight after leaving school are critically important.

Many of us look back with varying degrees of affection on our first jobs; they can be great socially and provide much needed income.

However, what we may not have realised at the time, is that we build critical skills and gain long-lasting lessons in our first jobs that we carry with us through our working lives.  

However, opportunities for our current crop of young people may not be what they once were.

As we approach Christmas 2018 casual jobs, the principal mechanism that has successful helped generations of young people enter the workforce, have been thrown into uncertainty.

A recent Federal Court decision, coming out of the coal mining industry, has overruled the existing understanding of casual employment, throwing the status of perhaps one million casual jobs into doubt, across virtually all industries.

Known as Workpac v Skene, this decision has left many small business owners who want to employ young people, parents and students as casuals with significant doubts.

As a result of the decision, employers are facing the prospect of being asked to pay twice for annual leave, once in a casual loading and again if a former employee makes a claim alleging they were not in fact casual, despite what they had agreed with the employer and the additional pay they received.

To many this looks like a clear case of double dipping.

At issue is whether a deal is a deal under our employment laws.

When employers take on casual staff and pay an extra loading they need to be confident that employees will not come back at them after work ends claiming extra monies for unpaid entitlements.  

Small business owners are already facing a complex web of regulation including a raft of workplace relations legislation fatter than a phone book.

This decision has muddied the waters even further, leaving many small business owners confused and lacking certainty around our employment laws.

And the only thing business likes less than uncertainty is being asked to pay twice for the one legal obligation.

Business people are rational.

They are not going to offer young people casual work unless they can be confident they have the arrangements legally right, and where there is doubt, it is cheaper and easier to have often older staff work overtime or to work themselves rather than hire casuals.

Many who have employed casuals over many years face the prospect of unpaid leave claims that will unavoidably bankrupt their businesses, putting not only casuals but also full and part time staff, as well as the proprietors out of work.

Ultimately, it will be the community that pays due to the government’s guarantee of unpaid work entitlements when businesses go bust.

Make no mistake, the viability of offering casual work is being actively reviewed by many Australian businesses, including those that provide first time work opportunities to our school leavers.   

Of course, there will still be casual jobs and many employers are going to ignore the Workpac decision or consider they can work within it.

But every employer who cannot be so confident or forgoes hiring casuals will potentially deny a young person the invaluable opportunity to learn the disciplines of work.

We face the prospect of fewer of our young people gaining their first entry into work.

Our lawmakers need to eliminate this doubt.

Otherwise some of the current crop of young people wanting casual work risk missing out this summer.  

And we know that failing to be engaged in work during the critical period after leaving secondary education can have negative consequences in the long term for unemployment and career success.

Australians know a fair go when they see it - and they know when our laws are falling short of what the community expects.

The uncertain state of our employment laws in the wake of the Workpac v Skene decision is not necessarily anyone’s fault - but the rules now desperately need to be fixed.  

We need legislation to stop any former employee double dipping and claiming unpaid leave when they have clearly been paid a loading to compensate for that leave.

We need legislation to ensure casual working and casual loadings operate as intended.

Young people, their parents, and the small businesses with jobs to offer are entitled to expect all those in our Parliament to take urgent action to fix this problem.

Scott Barklamb is the Director of Workplace Relations at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.