A job vulnerability index released last week by the Centre of Full Employment and Equity at Newcastle University shows nine of the 12 suburbs listed for Hume are in the 'very high-risk category' of employment vulnerability.

Hume's unemployment rate is 6.9 percent - about 3 percent above the September 2008 Melbourne average.

Recent downsizing plans announced by firms such as Pacific Brands, which swung the axe at its Coolaroo plant and would cost the area almost 300 jobs, hint at worse things to come.

While the study highlights the danger of increased job losses in traditional battler areas like Broadmeadows and Campbellfield, which have a dependence on manufacturing, it also highlights a major threat to new residential areas in Craigieburn, Roxburgh Park and Mickleham.

The report's author, Professor Bill Mitchell, said the most concerning issue was the vulnerability of people in areas like Hume where younger families had been lured by the promises of cheap new homes but without guaranteed incomes.

"The model identifies a number of factors which point to vulnerability, including the high levels of debt, high levels of casual employment, which are particularly precarious, along with low skill levels," Professor Mitchell said.

Casual and part-time jobs were the first to be cut back in leaner times while a lack of skills restricted the flexibility of finding new work, he said.

"What we have identified here is whole new emerging areas of disadvantage.

We have what you might call the new Howard family, those who typically live in the McMansions that they are affording with two incomes but where one is, say, a tradesperson and the partner has a causal or part-time position often requiring low skills.

"But the viability of these areas required constant growth and we are now in the downturn of a cycle."

Professor Mitchell said that once jobs losses started, the lack of job networks and job opportunities in traditional areas of higher unemployment meant the pain of recession lasted longer and workers, particularly the unskilled, faced potentially long-term unemployment.

"Our cities are very polarised when it comes to these opportunities. With no positive news in the neighbourhood, and no social networks for work, these areas can become like a job desert."

Melanie Raymond, chairperson of Glenroy-based employment service provider Youth Projects, said those already unemployed would go to the bottom of the pile if unemployment worsened in Hume.

"The long-term unemployed have already faced up to their disadvantage, and with employers wanting to take people with recent work experience, it's going to be that much harder."

"Those sort of unskilled jobs are among the first to go, and the fear is that this will tip families into real economic crisis."

Ms Raymond said that if local food, vehicle manufacturing and airport jobs were lost, the 'distance barrier' would make it hard for Hume residents to find work.

"The fear now is that this recession will turn back the clock on all the progress and economic prosperity that areas like Hume have enjoyed over the past six to 10 years."

Professor Mitchell called on the Federal Government to adopt a 'youth guarantee' used in countries like Denmark where all people under a certain age were either in work, education or training.

"If I was able to give them advice in the current economic climate it would be to stay in school as long as possible and, where school is not appropriate, look to other alternatives like apprenticeships or trades training."

Professor Mitchell also believed an infrastructure works program focused at a local level and implemented by the existing welfare bureaucracy would provide employment for other disadvantaged groups while also boosting the economy.