Ramaphosa tackles youth unemployment

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa officially launched the Youth Employment Service (YES) yesterday, an initiative that aims to see more than one million young South Africans being offered paid work experience over the next three years.

Ramaphosa said 330 000 jobs would be created a year for young people as a way to address youth unemployment in the country.

“If we, in the next year, could create half a million jobs for young people, we could make a serious dent on youth unemployment,” he said.

He said the programme would spread throughout the country, and would not be confined to urban areas.

“It is the young people who must daily grapple with the misery and indignity of poverty and unemployment,” he said.

Sid millions of young people do not complete schools and the skills of the many that do are not needed by the country’s economy.

“Without access to networks, without information about opportunities, without exposure to the world of work, even those with further education often struggle to bridge the gap between learning and earning,” he said.

The president said young people lived far from areas that offered employment opportunities, which escalates their travelling costs.

Ramaphosa said the decision by Moody’s not to further downgrade the country was a welcome positive, and added the biggest challenge was to make the country attractive to foreign and local investors.

“The US has reached almost full employment. They have been creating jobs because they have been successful at attracting investments globally and for local companies to invest in their local economy,” he said.

He said the government was working to improve the quality and value of learning in early childhood development in the country’s basic education system.

“Access to higher education and training has expanded dramatically over the last two decades, significantly increasing the number of people in the workforce who hold degrees and diplomas,” he said.-