Sydney - Construction worker Aaron Neiswander, who lives at his parents' Adelaide home, is out of work and on welfare.

He's been idle since January despite an unemployment rate at a 30-year low and companies so desperate for staff that even some McDonald's restaurants are staffed with guest workers from abroad.

Neiswander, 26, blames picky employers. "I'm just out of the age group," he said. "People are looking for juniors - they want cheap labour."

As Australia moves from boom to doom, Neiswander's chances of leaving the dole queue grow bleaker by the day. Economists say the unemployment rate is already surging and that the run of 
16 straight years of heady growth that made Neiswander so choosey is over.

Andrew Reardon, 32, lives in his own home and has a well-paying assembly-line job at the Ford Motors plant in Melbourne. He's already made changes that will be needed if the feared redundancy notice arrives.

"You don't go out as much, you spend less on food and you save up to have your car serviced," he said.

Ford, which let another 450 workers go in early October, is building fewer cars as demand for big saloons wilts. Rolling shutdowns are coming, with workers on half-pay on the days that production stops.

Troy Utan owns two houses and is better placed than most to cope with recession. But even the 37-year-old Melbourne businessman is adjusting to new realities. He has put his speedboat up for sale.

"It's been on the market for a month and a half and I haven't had a phone call," he said.

This month Australia's central bank chopped a full 1 per cent off interest rates and may do the same next month. The government has doubled the value of the grant it pays to anyone buying a first home.

Real estate agents like Neil Laws would normally be over the moon at all those incentives for renters to become owners. But the market is at a low. "It's paused at the moment, people are watching and waiting," he said.

Though Laws is loathe to admit it, house prices are continuing to fall and some think it's best to wait until they hit the bottom. At the weekend auctions, tyre-kickers outnumber serious buyers.

The old days of what former US Federal Reserve chairman Allan Greenspan famously called "irrational exuberance" are long gone. In their place have come times - and events - that can only be explained by irrational fear.

A Brisbane church that for years has run Free Food Fridays for the destitute was swamped last week by a crowd of 6,000. Many came by car and weren't obviously in need of charity.

Yet some some people are not so glum about the downturn.

Peter Sands, who runs a company that offers high-security storage for personal possessions like jewellery and fine art, is expanding his Brisbane business to other cities.

"We have more than 10 times the number of clients we had before the financial crisis," Sands said of the newly fearful who have cashed out of stocks and bought antiques and other supposedly safe bets.

Analysts say sales of chocolate and ice cream also rise in a recession as people spend to give themselves a lift out of the gloom.

The horseracing industry reckons it wins whatever the economic climate.

"It's true to say that betting goes up in prosperous times, but when tough times come along it doesn't take a big hit like everything else," said Andrew Lemon, a writer on thoroughbred racing.

He had an early indication that his confidence is spot on. On the weekend following one of the worst days for the stock market since the 1987 crash, the biggest crowd since 1983 turned out to watch the horses run round Melbourne's Flemington track and place bets on how they would place.

As the bookmakers might attest, regardless of how bleak the mood, no matter how bad the odds, the human spirit rises above adversity and people gamble on a better future. (dpa)