Every decade since the 1970's has seen more unemployment than the one before no doubt, a natural consequence of nations with cheaper currencies and cheaper labor taking market share/jobs. There is no solution to this, no magic fix to bring jobs back. All developed nations suffer it, and over time morph from being primarily agricultural economies into manufacturing, then to service economies cutting lawns and fingernails, and finally in the end, to economies built around personal debt, houses, cars, etc.

As time passes the government redefines the definition of what unemployed means. They have no true plan for the future I think, just a desire to coverup the sham that they find themselves in charge of. So now you are fully employed if you work one hour a week, and if you aren't actively looking for a job for six months, you are taken off the unemployed total. I would assume unemployment in the US and Australia now exceeds the numbers experienced in the Great Depression but the ability to print mountains of new money and to hand out free food has masked the effects of this down on the street.

It's a classic case of the frog in the pot. One day people are going to all of a sudden wake up enmass, wake up to starvation and mass homelessness, just like in the great depression.