Businesses need to employ more young people to dent the high levels of joblessness among the youth, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday.
Ramaphosa, writing in his weekly newsletter, called on businesses to join the government’s efforts to create jobs for the youth.
“The youth of South Africa confront new struggles in their quest to lead lives of dignity and in pursuit of a better life. Though we have made substantial progress in broadening opportunities for young people in basic and higher education, millions of young people remain unemployed,” said Ramaphosa.
“While the latest employment figures give some cause for optimism – some 370 000 jobs were created in the first quarter of this year – we still have a huge mountain to climb in our quest to create more jobs, especially for young people.”
According to Statistics SA, youth unemployment is now 66.5%.
“No society can expect to grow or thrive when the vast majority of its young people are out of work. Our foremost priority as government is to achieve higher rates of inclusive growth that generate sustainable jobs at the scale of social need.”
Ramaphosa said the government’s economic reforms and industrial policy to support labour-intensive growth sectors aimed to drive growth and expand private-sector employment.
“However, we cannot simply wait for higher growth to create jobs, especially for young people. Even as millions of people are unemployed, there is no shortage of work to be done to build a better South Africa.”
He said this was premise of the Presidential Employment Stimulus, which had been designed as a “once-in-a-generation effort” to tackle unemployment at scale.
“The employment stimulus is on track to support a million jobs through a wide range of programmes, all of which contribute to improving communities and creating public good that will last beyond the work itself.”
He said youth comprised 84% of participants in these programmes, while 62% were women.
The most recent initiative to be launched through the stimulus plan is the Social Employment Fund, which will pioneer a new approach to public employment. The fund will partner with NGOs across the country to deliver ‘work for the common good’ such as in community safety, food kitchens, urban agriculture, early childhood development and the fight against gender-based violence.
“The Social Employment Fund will create 50 000 new work opportunities in the first phase before scaling up. The unique feature of social employment is that it recognises that unemployed people in communities are a powerful resource for development, not a ‘problem’ to be solved,” Ramaphosa said.
“We have many real problems to address – from improving waste collection to creating safe and beautiful public spaces – that require work, and many people who are eager to do it.”
Ramaphosa said social employment provided participants with an income by supporting locally driven initiatives to fulfil local needs, while unlocking creativity and agency, building local participation and strengthening community support systems.
He added that the revitalised National Youth Service, announced during his State Of the Nation Address, would create a further 50 000 jobs for unemployed young people performing acts of service.
“The recruitment of participants for social employment and the youth service is currently under way. What these programmes show is that public employment can achieve multiple objectives at once. These include addressing unemployment, building skills and experience, providing public goods and services and, perhaps most important of all, contributing to a massive national effort to improve the state of our country.”
Ramaphosa added that the economy was slowly returning to pre-pandemic levels.
“As government, we will continue to champion programmes and initiatives that limit the impact of unemployment on young people until the private sector starts creating more jobs at scale. I once again call on business to be part of this effort by employing more young people, by making use of the Employee Tax Incentive and other measures, and by supporting and buying from businesses owned and run by young people.”
