Youth Employment Accord offers Mass-Based and Holistic Approach to Employment Creation
The nature and extent of youth unemployment in the country requires more than loud rhetoric or a simple policy response. Right now approximately 25% of South Africans are unemployed and of those who are classified as being unemployed around 72% are young people between 15 and 35 years of age. That's millions of young South Africans who simply cannot be absorbed into the open labour market.
To place the burden squarely on the shoulders of the state is to underestimate the nature and character of the crisis itself. The structural problems in the local and global economy compounded by the challenges of education and skills development create the need for both demand and supply side interventions. These interventions can only be developed and implemented if all social partners commit to working together in creating jobs for youth.
Recognizing that the state is an important actor but not the only actor is a necessary step to tackling the youth unemployment crisis. The Youth Employment Accord signed on the 18th of April 2013 by government, organized labour, organized business as well as community and youth formations offers a mass-based, collective and realistic approach to job creation for young South Africans. It recognizes the role and responsibilities of all social partners in addressing the youth unemployment crisis.
The Accord presents the best and most viable blueprint for job creation in the short term. The Youth Employment Strategy 2055 currently being developed by the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) will attempt to offer a more long term plan with the aim of halving youth unemployment by 2055.
The Accord should in the meantime assist with coordinating efforts at job creation for young people with the aim of making a meaningful contribution towards the creation of five million jobs by 2020. It contains a set of six commitments that all social partners have subscribed to. This alone offers more hope than a single policy response in the form of a youth wage subsidy or any other variant.
It does so because of the recognition that no single actor or policy response will be able to make a dent on this bleak picture of youth unemployment in the country let alone eradicate it. More importantly is the diverse set of commitments contained in the Accord and the collective impact if implemented correctly. This collective impact may be able to do more for efforts at job creation than a youth wage subsidy. Simply put, you can incentivize employers with whatever tickles their fancy but the reality of the matter is that none will offer employment to a young person who is not qualified or lacks experience.
Education and skills development matters for job creation. However it is not the only area of development that matters. Hence the Youth Employment Accord speaks to five other areas of work exposure, private sector measures, public sector measures, youth target set-asides as well as youth entrepreneurship and youth cooperatives. Taken together, progress in these areas may lead to young South Africans being more employable while more jobs are created through public and private sector measures. Improving the levels of education and the quality of education can increase chances of employment for young people.
This is what commitment one of the Youth Employment Accord speaks to. Interventions aimed at second chance opportunities for matriculants, career guidance for urban and rural youth, expanding the intake of Further Education and Training Authorities or FETs and Sector Education and Training Authorities or SETAs may go along way in making young people more employable. Combine this commitment to education and training with the second commitment to enhanced work exposure through focused internships, vacation programmes, job shadowing etc. and we are well on our way to addressing the demand side of employment creation for young South Africans.
There however remains an important role for the public and private sector to absorb more young people into employment opportunities. The call for the Expanded Public Works Programme and the Community Works Programme to absorb 80% of new entrants from the ranks of young people is another important measure for speeding up efforts at job creation for youth.
The equal responsibility now placed on the private sector by the Accord should be able to yield the desired results for expanding the intake of young people into employment opportunities. This means that while we are preparing young South Africans for employment we are also placing youth into employment which remains one of our biggest challenges to date.
The fifth commitment is particularly important for transforming the current structure of our economy. This is where instruments such as the youth wage subsidy fall short. The aim is not only to produce more youth workers but more young entrepreneurs and particularly young black entrepreneurs.
The development of young black entrepreneurs and youth cooperatives will greatly assist to change the ownership and control patterns of our economy in the long run. Many countries have used the cooperatives mode of enterprise as a means of changing the ownership patterns of their economies or particular sectors of their economy. Stimulating the growth of youth cooperatives may in fact provide a viable means of enterprise for poverty alleviation and job creation for many young South Africans.
Ultimately the Accord can do more for job creation then any silver bullet response. Then aim now is to ensure its implementation and effective monitoring as we work towards a more long term plan for future generations.
Yershen Pillay is the YCLSA National Chairperson. This article first appeared in the YCL's online newsletter, the Bottomline.
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