Creating jobs for the youth is crucial
Statistics show that youth unemployment has increased
IMPLEMENTING youth-focused employment initiatives and fostering entrepreneurship is key to addressing South Africa’s dire youth unemployment statistics. This is according to Gugu Mjadu, Business Partners’ executive general manager of marketing and spokesperson for the 2018 Entrepreneur of the Year competition.
She said Statistics SA recently released its unemployment data for this year’s first quarter, which showed that youth unemployment in the country had risen to 52.4% in the first quarter – from 51.1% in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Mjadu said there was no time like the present for both the public and private sectors to take tangible action and referred to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Youth Employment Service (YES), which was launched in March as one method of tackling the issue.
She said South Africa needed to use these and other platforms to get more young people into employment.
“It is particularly encouraging that the YES initiative encourages small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) to also host young people in their companies, as this will introduce more young people to entrepreneurship.
“If South Africa can implement this programme effectively with the participation of SMMEs, we will have a chance to address two of the country’s key challenges: the high youth unemployment and low-entrepreneurial activity,” said Mjadu.
She added that by exposing young workers to SMMEs, South Africa would possibly contribute to them pursuing this endeavour as well and create more employment opportunities in the future.
This would help tackle the unemployment issue from two sides, Mjadu pointed out.
“It creates a job for the entrepreneur themselves, effectively opening up another space for someone else in formal employment, as well as creating a future job pipeline when and if the business grows enough in order to hire its own staff,” she said.
Leroi Raputsoane, chief economist at Productivity SA, said the latest Institute of Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), showed that South Africa had failed to improve on its overall competitiveness.
Raputsoane said in the IMD’s rankings, South Africa remained at 53 out of the 63 countries surveyed by the institute, which was the same ranking the country achieved last year.
He said of the myriad issues that hampered South Africa’s growth, youth unemployment stood out starkly with unemployment among the youth increasing from 50% last year to about 65% this year.
“The concept of international competitiveness has gained importance in recent decades from the viewpoint of economic growth and the development of nations.
“And one of the key priorities of economic development policy in South Africa should be to foster the country’s productivity and competitiveness in domestic and international markets to attain improved welfare and prosperity for its citizens,” said Raputsoane.
In economic performance South Africa dropped from 58 last year to 59 this year; in government efficiency the country’s performance moved from 50 to 49; in business efficiency the performance fell from 41 to 46; while infrastructure recorded a drop from 56 to 58.
At the top of competitiveness rankings, the US moved from fourth position last year to be ranked the most competitive economy this year. Hong Kong dropped to second position; Singapore maintained third position; the Netherlands was ranked fourth; while Switzerland was fifth.
South Africa’s counterparts in BRICS showed slight improvement with India moving from 45 to 44; China showed a significant movement from 18 to 13; Brazil moved from 61 to 60; and Russia from 46 to 45.
INITIATIVES FOCUSING ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP WOULD HELP TO ADDRESS THE CRISIS