‘Majority of SA youth do not possess the necessary skills to take up jobs’

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Civil society organisation, Alliance For Youth, says the majority of South African youth do not possess the necessary skills to take up jobs, especially in the technological fields.

This comes as the world marks World Youth Skills Day.

Statistics by the UN suggests that 600 million jobs would have to be created over the next 15 years to meet youth employment needs globally.

In South Africa, youth unemployment came in at 46.5% in the first quarter of this year.

Spokesperson for Alliance For Youth, Noxolo Mnisi says, “There’s new roles that have come into play, especially after COVID where most of the young people are not able to jump in and take up those roles, because there’s a huge skills gap. We have the necessary qualifications, but are the qualifications that we are studying at universities relevant to what the job future looks like? It’s very critical to highlight things such as these because it makes us sit back as corporate, as government, to see where can we potentially start partnering together and helping close those gaps.”