Larisha Naidoo | Head | Zimele programme | Anglo American | mail me |
When we talk about youth unemployment in South Africa, we often use words like ‘heart-wrenching’ and ‘major challenge.’ Then we look at the statistics, and we realise that it is an understatement. What we are living now is a national crisis.
The official unemployment rate, according to the most recent Statistics SA numbers, is 32.6%. Unfortunately, young people bear the brunt of unemployment, with about 63% of all South Africans aged between 15 and 24 unemployed. If you factor in the people who have given up even looking for jobs, that number jumps to 74%. That is three out of every four young people.
The need for actual jobs and economic activity
Over the years, there have been numerous upskilling and development initiatives by government and the private sector.
What we need right now is actual jobs and economic activity. To do this, we must deal with a range of structural issues and obstacles which make it incredibly difficult for young people to get economically active.
For one, there are limited economic opportunities stemming from well before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are also significant, and well-documented, educational challenges in our country, which means our youth are burdened with low levels of literacy and numeracy. Our young people also lack access, both from a networking and geographical perspective, which has a major impact on how they can access economic opportunities to start with.
We need to take upskilling and development programmes one step further to focus on getting young people into actual jobs. Go onto any job portal today, and most jobs have an entry level requirement that immediately kicks out 74% of our youth.
What we must do is support youth with meaningful job experiences and mentorship that focuses on closing the workplace skills deficit. There needs to be a demand for that skill, and employment opportunities available for it.
Measuring progress and having feedback mechanisms
We have changed our focus from the person to the job. A recent study by Deloitte, ‘Job-centric upskilling’, showed that the best way to get young people into jobs is by training them for the specific skillset the job requires, providing the necessary support so they can do the job, and measuring their progress and having feedback mechanisms.
Training young people for jobs is not a uniquely South African challenge. According to the World Economic Forum, reskilling on a mass scale to create jobs relevant to the future needs of society, with a focus on lifelong learning and certifications and accreditations that are recognised by employers, will be vital for employability.
Here, we can draw lessons from how Germany implements its vocational education and training through a ‘dual-track’ system, where classroom-based training at specialised trade schools is combined with supervised on-the-job experience. This system trains 1.3 million apprentices annually in partnership with 430,000 companies, which then benefit from the skills developed.
Where are the jobs in South Africa, you ask? One area is hospitality and tourism, where we recently put 400 youth from remote mining communities through an upskilling programme using largely online training. The results? A third of them dropped out, largely because they found more value in the free cell phone than the actual job. Those that stayed on passed all courses on offer. At least 67% of them are now in jobs through skills they learned online, at a time when the tourism sector is struggling.
The programme has been so successful that it is being expanded to include another 3,000 youth from our host communities over the next three years.
In conclusion
The effects of a job go far beyond a pay check. As former US President Barack Obama said on Mandela Day in 2018: ‘It’s not just money that a job provides; it provides dignity and structure and a sense of place and a sense of purpose.’
Right now, we have 8 million young South Africans in desperate need of a purpose. We must shift our approach to not just give them skills, but jobs that are relevant and adaptive to a changing world. It’s time to change things up. Our youth deserve no less.
