Pretoria - Strides are being made to address youth unemployment which is a huge challenge for South Africa, says the Department of Labour.
“Part of these strides include the R300 million training initiative for training unemployed beneficiaries from the Unemployment Insurance Fund in partnership with SETAs on youth, which was launched by the Minister of Labour in 2013. The initiative will target 8 000 unemployed beneficiaries,” said Acting Deputy Director General for Public Employment Services (PES) Esther Tloane.
The Acting Deputy Director General’s comments were made at a Select Committee meeting in Cape Town on Tuesday.
She also shed light on the contributions by the department through the Compensation Fund in partnership with, Productivity SA, National Economic and Development Labour Council, as well as the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.
“In addition, aspects such as registration of work-seekers, vocational and career counselling and assessment of work-seekers to determine their suitability, advising work-seekers on access to education and training as well as providing specialised services to assist vulnerable workers are some of the measures pursued,” she said.
Youth unemployment has increased from 3 million in 2009 to the highest level of 3.4 million in 2013 and 2014.
Sam Morotoba, Acting Director General for Labour, said “with an unemployment rate of 25.5% (5 154 000 unemployed people) South Africa is faced with the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty, and inequality.
“The most pressing problem facing the country today is the absence of sustained economic growth and job creation, which are essential to reduce poverty and improve living conditions,” he said.
Although there were jobs that emerge from time to time “the challenges we face are the persistent structural skills deficit informed by the mismatch between the skills acquired by the job seekers in the education system against the skills demanded by the labour market”.
“The Small Medium Micro Enterprise sector is relatively underdeveloped; the country is also faced with a huge challenge of the ever growing shredding of permanent or stable employment, replaced by casual and unstable jobs,” said Morotoba. – SAnews.gov.za
