YONGAMA Ntingi is among the nearly half a million young people struggling to find work in the Western Cape.
The 22-year-old Delft resident completed her matric four years ago. Although her family did not have money to further her education, Ntingi was excited about joining the workforce so she could help provide for her family.
Four years later, with a few odd jobs here and there, Ntingi is finds herself among the frustrated thousands of young people whose hopes of employment have been dashed.
During the tabling of the Provincial Economic Review Outlook this week, MEC for Finance and Economic Development David Maynier highlighted how unemployment was more prevalent among those aged 15 to 24 in the province.
With the narrow unemployment rate estimated at 23.7% and the expanded definition at 27.7%, the province has the lowest unemployment rates in the country.
However, 45.2% or just over 427 000 young people are without jobs.
Last year, the province lost 159 266 employment opportunities – a decline of 6.2% from the previous year. The largest portion of these losses were in the private sector at 68.7% followed by construction at 12.5% and manufacturing with 11.6%.
Government was the only sector which did not shed employment opportunities during this period, instead adding 3 236 employment opportunities.
“Although the unemployed youth in the Western Cape only increased by 0.8%, it is paints a grim picture for the province. Instead of youth actively searching for employment, they are discouraged and becoming non-searching employed individuals,” read the report.
According to the report, the informal sector in the province has played a critical role in absorbing the lower-skilled workforce and bounced back quicker than the formal sector in bringing back jobs.
“This type of employment has rebounded quicker from the recession than formal employment. Between the second quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, the informal sector in the Western Cape gained back 53.2% of jobs lost,” read the report.
“In comparison the formal sector recovered by 34.5%. Informal employment also absorbs relatively more African and Coloured men, youth and less educated individuals. This sector makes a notable contribution to a total employment in both the Western Cape 11.5% and 17.6% in South Africa.
“In the Western Cape, youth make up 12.3% of those in informal employment. The largest portion of the informal sector is absorbed in the tertiary service sector, where the Trade (30%) and personal services (24.3%) are the largest contributors to total informal employment.”
Zolani Mali, 34, from Khayelitsha went from being unemployed to providing temporary employment after establishing his own business in late 2019.
“The last time I had a job was in 2016 when I worked for a political party during the local government elections and even that was not permanent, so by late 2019 I registered my own upholstery cleaning company,” he said.
“Things were okay until Covid-19 hit but I persevered and now things are slightly better. It is a seasonal business which picks up in the spring and summer months but I’m able to hire a maximum of six people when I have jobs lined up.
“It is hard without any sort of support or sponsorship and although I’m fully registered, trying to get even an appointment with the National Youth Development Agency is a nightmare, so everything is a struggle.”
President of the SA Informal Traders Alliance said greater support was needed to the sector to help it grow so that it can provide more employment.
“The informal sector is a stepping stone for those who want to enter the market either having lost a job or never having had one,” she said.
“For survival you find the unemployed entering the informal sector but access to the market, lack of funding and restrictive by-laws continue to be hindrances. What is needed is the correct enabling environment that would make it easier for people to enter the sector.
“We need to have a round-table discussion with all spheres of government to get a plan to make it easier for people to create more businesses in the sector.
“Last I checked there were about five million people in the informal sector, if we got just a million of those to employ more people each, that would create a million jobs easily. But we need the political will to create an environment that would make this possible.”