Deputy President Paul Mashatile on Tuesday endorsed the five strategic areas recommended by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to fight the scourge of youth unemployment.
The report, developed by UNDP and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), highlights that youth unemployment is a defining development challenge that limits the earning potential of youth, stymies economic growth, threatens social cohesion, and puts pressure on public resources.
The South Africa National Human Development Report (SANHDR) 2022, highlighted the escalating youth unemployment, which stood at 61% for youth aged between 14 and 24 and 39.9% for those who are 25 to 34 years old, according to the latest data.
This is while the overall national unemployment rate is sitting at 32.7%.
However, figures mask significant disparities among provinces, with rates ranging from 22.5% in the Western Cape to as high as 42.4% in the Eastern Cape.
Speaking at the launch of the report named ‘Harnessing the Employability of South Africa’s Youth’, the Deputy President said it was obvious that government’s efforts to empower young people must be premised on a growing and inclusive economy.
He told the delegates the state approves the comprehensive strategies proposed in the report to tackle youth unemployment.
These include urgent prioritisation of public sector investment in education and skills development as well as scaling up initiatives that harness youth participation in the economy.
The document has also called for developing one-stop job services that consolidate existing tools and services, expanding youth entrepreneurship in technology-based and green industries, women’s economic empowerment and strengthening and expanding the National Youth Service to bridge the school-to-work gap.
“We agree with the UNDP when you say, ‘There is no doubt that the high unemployment rate is a ticking time bomb’,” he said.
“Accordingly, in addressing youth unemployment, the country will simultaneously address poverty and income inequality. Addressing and tackling youth joblessness is not only sound economics but also a development imperative.”
He assured the guests that the government was pursuing several youth empowerment programmes.
These, according to the country’s second-in-command, include the Youth Employment Service Programme, part of the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention, which has already provided over 100 000 jobs.
He also spoke about the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention (PYEI), the Public Service Graduate Internship and Learnership Programme and the National Rural Youth Service Corps Programme.
“Evidently, the challenge is not one of a lack of programmes. It is one about the effectiveness, acceleration and massification of our programmes.”
He acknowledged that government needs to address “leakages” throughout the public policy system.
“For example, the report we are launching found that those without a matric qualification make up a significant proportion of the youth unemployment rate at around 40%, in contrast with only 13% of graduates who are unemployed.”
Meanwhile, he said government still needs to understand factors that lead to dropouts throughout the schooling system.
“Implicit in this fact is a deficit of skills and exposure for the young person who does not possess a matric. This means that our interventions have to be more specific and targeted, considering the urban-rural divide, race, gender and the availability of opportunities.”
He believes that the quality of the tuition in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges also needs to be examined.
“To derive maximum benefits to the enormous public resources we are expending into this important sector. None of us needs any tutelage about the importance of skills development.”
He pointed out that South Africa will host the BRICS Future Skills Challenge, in which young people from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will compete to show solutions to the 21st century’s most pressing challenges.
The skill areas include aircraft maintenance, building information modelling, cyber security, data science, drones, robotics, mobile app development, renewable energy and robotic process automation.
“It goes without saying that to compete amongst the BRICS nations and the world on a sustained and sustainable basis, we cannot but empower the youth with the wherewithal to acquire the skills of the 21st century.”
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