Floods, fires and COVID-19 may have pushed country kids out of school at the same time as young people turn away from employment and higher education, raising concerns about the rural workforce.
The school non-attendance rate in regional Australia was 14.6 per cent in 2024, well above pre-pandemic levels of 10.6 per cent in 2019.
This has been flagged as a "significant gap" in a landmark Jobs an...
