‘Rise to the battle of joblessness,’ youths urged

Despite government initiatives to fight youth unemployment, the problem is still preventing the youth participating fully in SA’s economy, organisations say.

The organisation People’s Liberation said the 32.6% unemployed as released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) recently was a matter of concern – but the 64% jobless youth was even more shocking.

At the Youth Empowerment Dialogue, hosted by National Youth Task Team, various young speakers said the battle of today’s youth was economic.

ALSO READ: What is the solution to South Africa’s youth unemployment problem?

“The battle of our time is poverty and unemployment. We have to reject poverty like the youth of 1976 rejected Afrikaans as a language of instruction,” one speaker said.

“We cannot accept unemployment as a status quo.”

The youth must not accept as a norm the fact that there were 3.1 million discouraged work seekers in South Africa.

“These are the things we need to reject,” another said.

The meeting was told that the vision of the youth must include dealing with poverty faced by rural people situated away from economic opportunities, such as rural people of the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal who lived in two-thirds of the country’s rural areas.

The vision of the young people must include those who were excluded from economic opportunities even prior to 1994, including the rural and urban youth and women.

But PL national chair Phumudzo Mukhwathi said the youth must blame Stats SA for issuing false information since 1994. He accused Stats SA of being captured.

“Where are the youth supposed to get jobs when government institutions such as [Passenger Rail Association of South Africa], Eskom and other state-owned enterprises have collapsed due to cadre deployment and corruption,”

Mukhwathi said. “Some of the youth planning to start their businesses are forced to give up because of load shedding and water shortages.

“We are calling for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s urgent intervention on this high unemployment rate because even some highly qualified youth remain jobless.”