The REDI3x3 and National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) provide not just a snapshot but a moving picture (in both senses of moving) of youth unemployment and poverty in South Africa. Particularly sobering is the fact that even when young people do find jobs they struggle to retain them – there is no linear progression, but rather a constant struggle to get on, and stay on, the employment bus.
Youth policy in South Africa is long on aspiration, and on grand, all-inclusive strategies and plans, but there is little follow through, in part there are too many targets, strategy is unfocused and undifferentiated, implementation capacity is limited, and no one is in charge, no-one is driving it, and no-one is accountable.
All of this needs a fundamental rethink, not just by government, but by business and labour too, or else the future for these young people, and with them the future of a free, democratic and prosperous South Africa, goes up in smoke.
Glen Fisher 