Youth urged to focus on business skills to secure employment

SOUTH African youth should focus on developing entrepreneurial skills, because even tertiary education no longer guarantees employment, says deputy minister in the Presidency Buti Manamela.

“In 2013 we had close to 200 000 unemployed graduates accounted for. It shows you that the questions of skills and education interventions made at that level (tertiary) do not guarantee employment. These are the things we need to start planning for.”

Manamela said the youth of today need to focus on equipping themselves with skills and create employment by becoming entrepreneurs, rather than waiting for a job to present itself.

“I am a firm believer in encouraging young people towards the route of self employment.

“This is the central solution in dealing with youth unemployment.

“Which means that we have to encourage young people to take up entrepreneurship.

“We need to support those through funding and financial support,” he said.

Manamela was speaking at the annual Wits Labour Law conference in Johannesburg yesterday, under the theme #UnemploymentMustFall.

Manamela also touched on the fact that economic growth does not contribute to youth employment.

“We should be more about youth employment and job creation and less about what the trends and challenges are. “We need to now look at the interventions. “Even with economic growth we have always maintained high youth unemployment.

“There is no given that growing the economy will result in higher numbers in terms of employment.”

He said the manner in which graduates are trained needs to be worked on in order to absorb the youth into the labour market and create sustainable jobs.

“How do we train university graduates when they qualify because they just end up joining the unemployment queue. Essentially meaning that there is no value for their money as it relates to the qualification that they possess. Universities should be able to prepare them for the challenges they will face.”

Manamela said while skills development remains a problem, creating markets for small medium enterprises is essential in sustaining jobs for the youth.

“There are government-led programmes that are meant to become a platform for successful small businesses.

“We need to start talking more about youth economic empowerment.

“Small medium businesses is one space that I really think we need to deal with to resolve youth unemployment.”

Government would also prioritize the youth in big government projects, he said.

“One of the things which government is advocating for is preferential employment for youth in big government projects. These include the roll out of broad band and the manufacturing of solar water geysers.

“We see those as the big projects which will lead to sustainable youth employment.”