PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa said on Wednesday that while South Africa is an infinitely better place than it was in 1976, the fact that nearly 64% of young people in South Africa are unemployed was something no country can afford.
“We launched the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention in February last year, just weeks before the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in South Africa,” said Ramaphosa.
“The Intervention includes a range of priority actions to boost youth employment over the next five years. Our goal is to become a country where every young person has a place to go – whether in further education and training, in skills development, in work experience, in entrepreneurship, in youth service or in formal employment.”
Ramaphosa was addressing the 2021 Youth Day event in KwaZulu-Natal.
Ramaphosa’s speech was delivered virtually, hours after he announced the implementation of level three of the national lockdown.
He added that the Presidential Employment Stimulus has thus far supported over 10,000 jobs in business process outsourcing, with most of these jobs going to the youth.
He said around 1 800 young people have been given jobs in a number of public works projects including the Welisizwe Rural Bridges Programme.
“With funding from the stimulus, 1,200 youth-owned micro enterprises have received support from the National Youth Development Agency,” said Ramaphosa.
“Another successful programme that is continuing to create work opportunities for young black South Africans is the Youth Employment Service, known as YES. With the support of corporate partners it has created 55,000 work experiences since its inception, injecting R3.1 billion in youth salaries back into the economy. In the coming year, YES aims to double this to 100,000 quality work experiences. The Presidential Youth Employment Intervention will build on all of these successes. To translate potential into opportunity we are very pleased today to officially launch SA Youth, the national pathway management network.”
He said through these various programmes, government will create real opportunities for young people to grow their skills and earn an income.
- Inside Politics
