President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a newsletter on Monday stating that this Youth Day, they will commemorate the youth of the yesteryear in honour of their bravery and sacrifices.
Though today’s youth is facing high rate of unemployment, the president stated that social employment offers the youth hope and opportunity. South African youth has been faced with the pandemic of unemployment, and the government has been promising jobs since the inception of freedom this year 370 000 jobs were created in the first quarter. However, according to Stats SA employment rate in South Africa is 66.5% in the first quarter of 2022.
The graph below shows the number unemployment amongst the youth irrespective of the education level:
“Today, the youth of South Africa confront new struggles in their quest to lead lives of dignity and in pursuit of a better life. Though we have made substantial progress in broadening opportunities for young people in basic and higher education, millions of young people remain unemployed.”
The President further said: “I hold the view that even as millions of people are unemployed, there is no shortage of work to be done to build a better South Africa. This is the fundamental premise of the Presidential Employment Stimulus, which is designed as a once-in-a-generation effort to tackle unemployment at scale. The employment stimulus is on track to support a million jobs through a wide range of programmes, all of which contribute to improving communities and creating public goods that will last beyond the work itself.”
The presidency recently launched an initiative through the stimulus the Social Employment Fund which will pioneer a new and innovative approach to public employment.
“The Social Employment Fund will create 50,000 new work opportunities in the first phase before scaling up further in subsequent phases. The unique feature of social employment is that it recognises that unemployed people in communities are a powerful resource for development, not a ‘problem’ to be solved. Another important programme that has now entered implementation, and which I announced in the State of the Nation Address, is a revitalised National Youth Service.”
