Youth unemployment in South Africa remains high: Experts

According to experts, youth unemployment remains stubbornly high in South Africa, with young people aged 15 to 24 accounting for 66.5 percent of the unemployed in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Padi Lehohla, a former Statistician-General, believes that access to high-quality education is the only way to address increasing young unemployment.

Others argue that the government should liberalize the economy in order to foster job creation.

According to statistics from Statistics South Africa, a significant percentage of young people are dissatisfied with the labor market and are not improving their abilities through education and training.

As Stats SA prepares to release the quarterly labour force survey for the first quarter of 2022 on Tuesday, Lehohla says government’s youth employment programmes are not enough to adequately deal with the problem.

“A million less among the 15 – 24 were employed in 2020 compared to 2008. Five hundred thousand less were employed in the 25 – 34 level in 2020 compared to 2008. Now tell me whether there is a youth program which actually supports this? The story is very disturbing, yet the President [Cyril Ramaphosa] says we have employed so many among the youth.

“The figures don’t support that, who gives the President the numbers. The Statistician-General presents the numbers, who are the bureaucrats who then advices the President on this for him to make this kind of statement,” asks Lehohla.

Quarterly Labour Force Survey Document: