Young people often complete degrees or certificates without a clear sense of where those skills are needed, while employers struggle to find candidates with relevant technical and workplace experience.
Image: File
PUBLIC discourse following this year’s National Budget has focused heavily on tax relief and easing pressure on household finances. That’s understandable.
When the cost of living rises, any talk of relief tends to dominate the headlines. But amid the discussion about consumer relief and fiscal stability, one of the country’s most urgent structural challenges struggled to cut through the noise: youth unemployment.
South Africa is a predominantly young nation, yet millions of school leavers, graduates and job seekers are still standing outside the economy looking for a way in. The growing number of young people who are not in employment, education, or training should concern us far more than it currently does.
While the Budget acknowledged economic reforms and skills development interventions, it offered little indication of how these would translate into real opportunities.
At a time when the country is grappling with multiple crises — from crime to infrastructure failures — youth unemployment risks slipping down the national priority list. That would be a mistake. If anything, the issue sits at the centre of many of the challenges we face today.
The Budget focuses heavily on infrastructure investment and economic reform, which has the potential to stimulate growth and unlock investment. But growth alone does not automatically open doors for first-time job seekers.
Without clear planning, infrastructure projects can bypass the very communities where unemployment is highest. If South Africa is serious about tackling this crisis, major public investments must include youth-linked procurement targets, structured apprenticeship programmes and entry-level roles that prioritise young people in the communities where projects are implemented.
Skills development must also translate into employment. The government has acknowledged that the current system has not delivered the outcomes originally intended, and the proposed shift toward a dual training model — combining classroom learning with practical workplace experience — is a welcome step.
However, the real challenge lies in implementation. Too often, young people complete learnerships or short-term training programmes only to find themselves back where they started: qualified on paper but without workplace experience.
A more coordinated approach is needed to close the persistent gap between the skills young people acquire and the needs of the economy. South Africa currently lacks a centralised database that connects training pathways with sectors where opportunities are emerging.
Young people often complete degrees or certificates without a clear sense of where those skills are needed, while employers struggle to find candidates with relevant technical and workplace experience.
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges — which focus on practical and occupational skills — could play a far stronger role if their programmes were directly linked to infrastructure, construction and energy projects already planned across the country. In this way, national development projects can serve as training grounds where young people gain real experience.
Infrastructure investment should not only build roads, rail and power systems. It should build careers.
Youth unemployment cannot slip down the national priority list. Millions of people are entering adulthood desperate for a foothold in the economy, and the longer they remain locked out, the harder it becomes to change that reality.
This is not a distant policy problem. It shapes what communities look like, how families survive and whether the country’s growth plans have any real meaning. South Africa does not lack programmes or good intentions aimed at youth development.
The problem is that too many economic reforms, infrastructure projects and training initiatives still operate in isolation from each other. Youth unemployment is therefore more than a labour market statistic. It is a measure of whether economic reform is reaching the people who need it most.
If young South Africans cannot find a way into the economy, the country’s broader reform agenda will struggle to deliver the progress it promises.
* Nkosinathi Mahlangu is a youth employment and entrepreneurship specialist at Momentum Group Foundation.
** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, and Independent Media.