Last year, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe warned at an economic strategy gathering that the unemployed and out-of-school youth were a “ticking time bomb”, adding that their status needed to be addressed with urgency.
Motlanthe further said the economy and the very fabric of society were at great risk as the number of unemployed youth steadily increased, creating a society of unemployable people who couldn’t contribute to meaningful development.
“He (Motlanthe) couldn’t have said it better,” said economic analyst Simon Crew when asked for comment.
“Some tend to fall under the radar if they are missed by studies and census and are not on local clinic registers.
“There could even be a couple of hundred thousand more because a chunk was totally unknown after they had dropped out of school earlier on in their lives and were unaccounted for by society,’’ said the Joburg consultant.
He has participated in studies and often provides analysis for institutions of higher learning and government departments.
Sociologist Veliswa Nqoyi said: “South Africa has an acute problem of youth unemployment and what is required is a multi-pronged strategy to raise employment and support inclusion and social cohesion.”
Nqoyi, who works with Joburg’s Research Humanities Village, said that the growing youth unemployment statistics meant that young people were not acquiring the skills or experience needed to drive the economy forward. “The burden on the country’s economic development will only get heavier with time and will add on to the large burden on the state to provide social assistance.”
Calls from business for a youth employment subsidy have fallen on deaf ears, although there are nearly 16 million people on social grants with a tab of R122 billion announced by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan last week.
During his speech, Gordhan said the Budget continued to support job creation with a particular focus on unemployed youth. He said: “The proposed youth employment incentive, whose paper was released after a Nedlac economic discussion last year, has been shelved after the country’s labour constituency expressed reservations around the design and implementation of the incentive.”
He also spoke of funding allocations to the new Jobs Fund aimed at supporting innovative public or private sector projects that started operating in June and received more than 2 500 applications, some of which came from the youth.
He, however, acknowledged that the country was not doing enough to grow the economy and create jobs for the youth.