By Prof. Joseph Sekhampu, chief director of the NWU Business School. 

Consider a young South African who secures a twelve-month workplace placement after years of unemployment, carrying the quiet hope that life might finally begin to move forward. For the first time, there is a regular income, some relief from dependence on family and the dignity of leaving home each morning with somewhere to go. When the placement ends, the employer has no permanent position available, and the young person must return to a household that had briefly begun to believe things were changing. The placement participant returns to searching, applying and waiting, now with workplace experience but facing the same shortage of opportunities. For many young South Africans, entering the world of work only to find themselves excluded again has become a painful feature of the transition to adulthood.

This experience raises a question about what employment interventions can reasonably achieve. The young person has acquired practical skills, established workplace relationships and demonstrated the ability to work. The remaining obstacle may be the absence of a position rather than inadequate preparation. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent call for skills training to be aligned with industry needs addresses genuine weaknesses in South Africa’s education and employment systems. However, the country has already developed several mechanisms intended to connect young people with workplace opportunities.

The Youth Employment Service (YES), established in 2018, provides paid workplace experience through employer partnerships. The Presidential Youth Employment Intervention coordinates initiatives that connect young people with training, employment and earning opportunities, while a number of platforms help participants navigate the available pathways. Sector education and training authorities (SETAs) and technical colleges also form part of the institutional arrangements linking skills development with workplace requirements.

South Africa has become more capable of organising pathways into employment, although the effectiveness of individual programmes varies. Their existence challenges explanations that attribute unemployment primarily to insufficient coordination between employers and training institutions. The more difficult issue concerns the relationship between successful programme delivery and the creation of lasting employment. Where businesses are not expanding, training may redistribute employment opportunities among applicants rather than substantially increase overall employment.

A programme can meet its operational targets while the economic conditions confronting its participants remain largely unchanged.

The Presidential Youth Employment Intervention already recognises the importance of progression towards sustainable earnings and employment. Its attention to longer-term outcomes acknowledges that participation alone cannot establish lasting success. The unresolved question is whether programme evaluations adequately distinguish between temporary income, improved individual employment prospects and additional jobs that would not otherwise have existed.

The incentives facing employers help explain why these outcomes can diverge. Businesses recruit according to expected demand, operating costs, productivity and commercial risk. Workplace placements can reduce recruitment uncertainty and improve access to suitable workers. However, practical experience cannot justify permanent positions where firms lack sufficient demand for their products or services. Employers may participate meaningfully in youth employment initiatives while remaining cautious about expanding their permanent workforce.

Government operates under a different set of constraints. Public authorities can finance training, subsidise placements, coordinate employers and report how many young people participate. These activities fall more directly within administrative control than the investment decisions that determine private-sector employment. Government can therefore demonstrate improvements in programme delivery even when broader employment outcomes remain uncertain. The capacity to administer employment interventions and the capacity to expand employment are not necessarily developing at the same pace.

This distinction also raises questions about institutional accountability. Training providers can be evaluated against the quality of their instruction and workplace preparation. Employment programmes can be assessed through credible evidence of subsequent earnings, retention and employment outcomes attributable to participation. Government’s wider economic performance requires separate scrutiny of investment, enterprise expansion and labour demand. Treating these different responsibilities as interchangeable obscures where progress is occurring and where constraints remain.

Existing employment initiatives should not be dismissed because they cannot independently resolve unemployment. Their contribution to individual mobility, income and workplace access can be substantial. However, the expansion of employment programmes cannot substitute for changes in the productive activities that determine how many workers businesses can sustainably employ.

For the young person completing a workplace placement, the programme may have delivered everything it promised. Practical experience has been gained, professional relationships established and employability improved. The return to unemployment nevertheless reveals how much of the final outcome depends on decisions beyond the participant’s control.

South Africa has invested considerable effort in helping young people prepare for work and navigate employment opportunities. Renewed calls for closer alignment between training and industry address a genuine problem but leave the structure of the economy largely unquestioned.

The unanswered question is why an economy that needs so much development has so little room for the generation expected to undertake it.

Prof. Joseph Sekhampu