‘Young people are a resource rather than an obligation’

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Youth Employment Services (YES) calls for the private sector to see young people as a resource rather than an obligation.

This as Treasury revealed it will allocate R7.4 billion to continue to support the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) this week reported that the unemployment rate has increased to 32.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023, up from a one-year low of 31.9 percent in the third quarter of 2023, meaning that 46 000 more people are unemployed.

YES Chief Partnerships Officer Tsholo Mogotsi, “We work with the private sector and actually we work with about 1 600 corporates as the Youth Employment Service to create so far in the last five years more than 130 000 work experiences for youth. What we’ve found obviously we need to make the jobs stick in the private sector because that is actually the employer in South Africa.”

Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana delivered his Budget Speech earlier this week, with mention of the billions set aside to stimulate youth employment.