CAPE TOWN - Youth unemployment in South
Africa has become a "national crisis", President Cyril Ramaphosa
said on Sunday at an event commemorating youth activism during
the apartheid era.
Unemployment in Africa's most advanced economy has remained
stubbornly high since white minority rule ended 25 years ago,
and creating jobs is a major challenge for Ramaphosa as he aims
to reignite an under-performing economy.
Unemployment inched up to 27.6% in the first quarter,
official data showed in May, underscoring the task faced by
Ramaphosa after his ANC party won re-election last month.
An expanded category of unemployment, including people who
have stopped looking for work, rose to 38% in the first quarter
from 37.0% in the previous three-month period.
"We are very much alive to the fact that youth unemployment
is indeed a national crisis," Ramaphosa told an audience of
mainly young people and students on National Youth Day.
The day honours scores of students killed during the 1976
Soweto uprising that helped focus global attention on the
brutality of apartheid.
According to Stats SA, the burden of
unemployment is concentrated among the 15-34 age group who
account for almost two-thirds of the jobless. Around four out of
10 young people do not have a job.