Chairperson, hon members and hon Ministers, we commemorate youth day at a time when youth unemployment in South Africa has reached crisis levels. Facts and statistics on unemployment from the Statistics SA Labour Force Survey show that unemployment for people between the ages of 15 to 34 years of age in South Africa stands at 70,7%. This means that more young people are idle than ever before.
This high rate of youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb and threatens to worsen political instability in South Africa, as millions of young people are not only jobless but have also lost hope about ever finding a job.
There are numerous factors contributing to this challenge. The most obvious one is the poor quality of our basic education system. The South African education system is failing to equip our youth with basic skills. Unless government improves the education system, unemployment will be an albatross around our necks for many years to come.
While fixing our education system is a medium-term to long-term project, there are a number of immediate interventions government can make to remove the youth from the periphery of economic activity. For instance, in some developing countries governments invest significant resources in the professionalisation and development of informal sector business. This has helped to reduce youth unemployment and unemployment in general and could work in South Africa as well.
We are aware that channelling youth to the informal sector is not a panacea for the youth unemployment problem, but it does serve as an important source of employment. Furthermore, a thriving informal sector would ensure that the youth are able to contribute to the economy, albeit less effectively than they could be otherwise.
However, such measures are possible only if government depoliticises the youth development agencies, such as National Youth Development Agency, in order to ensure that they discharge their mandates effectively.
All in all, to diminish the chronic youth unemployment problem, government needs to adopt economic policies that ignite economic growth and build an education system capable of unleashing the potential of the South African economy.