South Africa’s unemployment rate rising to 33,6% is concerning, particularly when we consider the efforts being made to get these numbers moving in the right direction.
This is the word from Nkosinathi Mahlangu, youth employment specialist at Momentum Group Foundation, adding that the bigger issue behind the headline figure is that our labour market is simply not absorbing people fast enough.
This is particularly evident among young people. We have effectively reached the 5-million mark for unemployed youth aged 15–34, while new entrants into unemployment increased significantly this quarter.
“We don’t only have a job creation problem; we have an entry problem,” Mahlangu says. “Young people are reaching the point where they should be entering the economy, but too many cannot find that critical first foothold.
“This is where we need to distinguish between job opportunities provided through various programmes and actual jobs that create sustainable pathways into the labour market,” he adds.
Almost 78% of unemployed South Africans have now been without work for a year or longer. The longer someone remains unemployed, the harder that pathway back into work becomes.
“The NEET numbers make this even more urgent. Almost one in two South Africans aged 15–34 is neither employed nor in education or training. This is where the bulk of our unemployed youth risks getting stuck. Upskilling matters, but it has to be linked much more deliberately to where actual employment opportunities exist.”
Mahlangu says one encouraging statistic is the slight rise in employment in the finance sector. “This gives us something to ponder as Momentum Group Foundation and as a sector, particularly as we have started recruiting unemployed graduates to be trained and absorbed as financial advisers.
“It is a step in the right direction, but it needs a consolidated effort to identify what other opportunities the sector can unlock for unemployed youth.
“Ultimately, we need to get better at connecting the dots between skills, opportunity and absorption,” Mahlangu says. “Training a young person cannot be the end goal – the goal has to be creating a credible pathway into sustainable work.”