Millions of South Africa’s youth remain unemployed even though the government has “made substantial progress in broadening opportunities for young people in basic and higher education,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in Pretoria on Monday.
Despite this, Ramaphosa said his government was ramping up efforts to address unemployment — specifically related to the country’s youth.
Addressing the nation in his weekly newsletter, the president acknowledged that as the country geared up to commemorate Youth Day this month to honouring the school children who stood up against the apartheid regime in 1976, the current generation faced challenges of their own.
“Today the youth of South Africa confront new struggles in their quest to lead lives of dignity and in pursuit of a better life,” he said.
He added: “Though we have made substantial progress in broadening opportunities for young people in basic and higher education, millions of young people remain unemployed.”
Ramaphosa highlighted that the Presidential Employment Stimulus, through the revitalised National Youth Service (NYS) and the Social Employment Fund (SEF), was geared at assisting the youth to face some of these challenges.
“The SEF will create 50,000 new work opportunities in the first phase before scaling up further in subsequent phases,” Ramaphosa said, noting that the youth were being recruited for these two programmes.
He added: “This work is in areas like community safety, food kitchens, urban agriculture, early childhood development and the fight against gender-based violence.”
According to him, “the NYS will create a further 50,000 jobs for unemployed young people performing acts of service across the country, while providing much-needed work experience and reinforcing the value of active citizenship.”
Statistics South Africa last week disclosed that at least 66.5% of youth are unemployed, despite an increase of some 370,000 new jobs created during the past quarter.
NM/jn/APA