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South Africa

Unlocking the untapped potential of our youth for economic growth

Unlocking the untapped potential of our youth for economic growth
Ravi Naidoo
By Ravi Naidoo
20 Aug 2024
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The best way to future-proof the country is to prepare young people to manage that future. Getting work experience is an essential part of that preparation.

The best way to future-proof the country is to prepare young people to manage that future. Getting work experience is an essential part of that preparation. 

South Africa is at a point of crisis and must not waste the opportunity to “up its game”. Due mainly to failing economic infrastructure and dysfunctional public schooling, levels of youth unemployment in South Africa have reached unprecedented levels.  

Additionally, we are forced to contend with a changing world of work, which puts an additional premium on experience and technology. For South Africa, after three decades of decidedly incoherent and mostly state-centric policies, it is evident that most of our recent progress came from effective partnerships between the state and the private sector.  

There are encouraging signs that we could be coming out of the economic woods. The president’s July 2022 Energy Action Plan, which enabled more private-sector wind and solar projects, facilitated a helpful energy surge, resulting in two months without any load shedding. As factories and businesses now stay powered for longer, they can generate the much-needed revenue, taxes and jobs that the country needs.  

Private-public partnership


This move to a private-public partnership was a brave decision taken by the president, against much political opposition, notably during the Stage 6 load shedding crisis. Because economic network infrastructure is catalytic, such a turnaround is highly impactful. 

Like economic infrastructure, young people are also catalytic.  

Indeed, as most people now accept, the best way to future-proof the country is to prepare young people to manage that future. Getting work experience is an essential part of that preparation.  

Hence, promoting youth employment is a critical concern for governments anywhere in the world. The challenge is worst in conditions of low growth, and high unemployment puts young work seekers at a particular disadvantage, as young people lack the experience to compete for scarce job opportunities.  

In South Africa, young people aged 15 to 24 and 25 to 34 continue to have the highest unemployment rates, at 70.6% and 50.1%, respectively. 

High potential


Among those young people — most of whom do not have access to the resources and social networks of their more privileged peers — are many thousands with high potential. We know, because we see YES alumni, after an initial year of work experience, quickly becoming valuable employees and even budding entrepreneurs.  

As companies see the impact those work experiences have, corporate participation in YES has risen strongly. In 2021, as the worst of the pandemic was ending, YES had achieved about 14,000 youth “internships” sponsored entirely by the private sector. At that point, YES had already become the biggest 12-month, full-time, minimum-wage internship programme in the country. In the year ended March 2024, YES created 37,000 internships, almost trebling the programme over just three years. 

In addition, corporate participation has risen from about 1,100 sponsoring companies in 2021 to 1,750 in 2024, making it the largest such corporate-backed programme in the country. 

YES was formed after the private sector (in the form of the CEO Initiative, comprising 150 of the most forward-thinking companies) identified youth employment as South Africa’s critical development prerequisite.  

Untapped economic potential


The theory of change at work here is simple enough. We see talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds as untapped economic potential. The high-potential youth in YES programmes go on to create careers and even job-creating businesses. 

The private companies themselves, which pay their salaries and supervise them, typically want to absorb as many of these young workers as they can afford. Our economic sectors, including renewables, retail, financial services and information and communication technology, gain by having thousands of talented young people enter their workforce.   

From our data of alumni, now more than 155,000 young people, we see that 45% are employed by the end of their internships and 15% have set up businesses. This is high impact, considering that all these young people were unemployed when they joined YES.   

The careers and enterprises spawned through the YES programme are remarkable. The young South African who became a drone pilot and now owns a company undertaking international contracts — imagine where she could take herself and the country in five years time. 

As a country we must stop seeing unemployed young people as a burden, but instead as an enormous opportunity. In an uncertain world, South Africa (particularly forward-thinking corporates and the government alike) needs to bet on a talent pipeline of its young people and support them to become the “game-changers” that we need for the future. DM 

Ravi Naidoo is the CEO of the Youth Employment Service (YES)

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