# Youth unemployment is a depressing reality in post-apartheid South Africa.
For many black South Africans, the change from apartheid to democracy 29 years ago held out the hope of a fresh start. The promise of equality for everyone was one of many. This meant that after years of oppression, discrimination, and segregation, black people were finally making progress toward political freedom, monetary prosperity, service delivery, access to public goods, and human dignity. After nearly three decades, the unemployment rate in South Africa is at 32,7%, and 30.4 million people are considered to be below the poverty line.
one can inquire as to what became of the pledges made by the African National Congress.
Guest: Asanda Ngoasheng, Political Analyst
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The ANC is still led by people born and raised in the apartheid era, so the party lacks new and fresh ideas. It has been leading South Africa astray. The drastic increase of youth unemployment every year is evidence enough that the country is in a dark alley.
South Africa currently suffers a 61% youth unemployment rate, which is far higher than it was during the apartheid era (29. 92%). Some people would argue that this is due to the rural-urban migration and the increasing population in the country compared to the apartheid era. Nevertheless, it is apparent that the government has dismally failed to create jobs and provide black South Africans with the financial freedom that was promised by the ANC when it took power in 1994.
Since 1994, various initiatives to reduce the rate of youth unemployment in South Africa have been implemented, but most were not effective. For example, former president Jacob Zuma adopted a new youth policy in 2015. It promised that all government departments would prioritise programmes that are critical to youth development. There is hardly any evidence that the national youth policy and the ones that came after, such as “democracy development”, achieved anything.
The youth are facing many barriers to employment. “The challenge for unemployed youth is not only one of skills. There are many graduates, who have completed university degrees, who are still unemployed,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Youth Day celebrations at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on June 16, 2018. He further called on both public and private companies to scrap the experience requirement.
However, his call was not effective as many companies still require two to five years’ experience for entry-level jobs.
Initiatives such as the YES program and the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention (PYEI) only offer the youth 12 months of internships and temporary work. This is another issue that the youth are confronted with, as 8 out of 10 interns do not get permanently employed after the programmes. Therefore, they must start looking for other jobs which, in most cases, 5 out of 8 do not get them.
As mentioned, the experience requirement is not the only employment barrier that the youth is facing. Ramaphosa’s focus must not be narrow.
Firstly, the quality of education that is provided from primary to tertiary is a major down slope to the employability criteria. The government must invest in educational programs and teachings that cater for coding, technology, engineering, IT as we are moving towards the world of Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
The Covid-19 pandemic also took a toll on South Africans, especially in the work industry. Three million people lost their jobs during lockdown, which drastically increased the number of unemployed youths. Subsequent to this, Ramaphosa’s administration has not made an adequate effort to help the country to recover from the pandemic. Therefore, many people remain unemployed.
In addition to the baneful effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, South Africa is currently confronted by an energy crisis ‘load shedding’. Consequently, many private businesses had to let go of their employees, and some closed down. This is another increase in the rate of youth unemployment and an ongoing downstream to poverty as businesses cannot function properly without electricity. As Ramaphosa said, he is not obligated to provide South Africans with electricity.
