A study by advocacy campaign Youth Capital said that eight in 10 young South Africans have to choose between looking for work and buying food because of the high cost of job hunting.
The report titled What does it really cost young people to look for work found that the cost of job hunting could be as high as R1 469 per month.
“The cost of looking for work is one of the reasons why young people give up hunting for opportunities; for this reason, it has been the focus of a number of state-led interventions.
We surveyed more than 10 000 young respondents to understand whether this cost is decreasing or not.
“The findings indicate that the barriers to employment are too insurmountable for young people and lock them out of economic activity.”
The report said young job-seekers spend an average of R700 per month on transport alone.
“In addition to data and application costs, respondents reported spending an average of R1 469 to look for work every month.
“Looking for work takes time: the majority of the survey respondents say that it takes them an average of six months to look for employment.”
Evashnee Naidu, the KwaZulu-Natal provincial director of the Black Sash, said that South Africa is still one of the most unequal societies in the world and the report just highlighted the daily struggles of the youth.
“The Social Relief of Distress grant of R350, while a worthwhile initiative, is wholly inadequate to address the challenges faced by youth in looking for, securing and maintaining employment.”
Naidu added that no person should have to choose between buying food or having funds for other basic survival needs like maintaining employment.
“The Black Sash and partners call on the government to make permanent the Social Relief of Distress grant and transition it to Permanent Universal Basic Income Support for those aged 18-59 and increase the value of the grant to at least the Food Poverty Line of R624.”
Duma Gqubule, a research associate at the Social Policy Initiative and independent economist, said that there were not enough jobs for the unemployed in South Africa.
“In the past 15 years we have lost at least 564 000 jobs in South Africa.
The problem is our economy is not growing enough to accommodate the unemployed youth.”
Gqubule added that it was worrying that the youth and their parents have to spend R1 469 to try to find work that is not guaranteed.
“It’s like paying for a lottery ticket in the hopes of finding a job. There are 700 000 new youth entering the job market every year and creating 2 million jobs in five years will not help the situation.
“It will still mean that there are millions of youth unemployed.
“We need our economy to grow by at least 4% and a change in industrial policy to address high levels of unemployment.”
Economist Dawie Roodt said the lack of jobs was due to the economy not growing.
“The problem is in leadership; we don’t have the right policies implemented to grow the economy. If we want to get people employed the main way is to get our economy growing.”
Roodt feels there isn’t enough money to assist youth with cash to look for jobs.
“The fiscal accounts are in deep trouble and there is simply not enough money.
“Improving infrastructure though will help as improving broadband access to fast and cheap internet will help the unemployed search for jobs.
“We also have to remember the private sector job is to grow the economy and in the process create jobs.
“The other issue is we need to start skills development in school because if you have the proper skills you will have a better chance of finding jobs.”
The Mercury