Strategic skills revolution can shift youth unemployment

Publication: Sowetan

Author:  Kasthuri Soni and Sharmi Surianarain 

Photo: Unspecified
 

SA is at the edge of a profound economic transition. The question before us is: how do we ensure our young people are not left behind?

In his State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a clear challenge: “SA needs a skills revolution.”

SA Youth — SA’s largest online youth recruitment platform — is responding to this challenge with expediency. A revolution is indeed needed, not just a slogan but a deliberate and fundamental redesign of our skills systems to develop talent for an economy changing faster than our institutions can keep up.

While the class of 2025 earned well-deserved praise — with a record 88% matric pass rate and rising Bachelor passes — a matric certificate is still not enough to guarantee a livelihood.

Education matters — but it is no longer enough. Only 5% of job postings accept applicants without a matric, and even graduates face high unemployment rates. Young people are doing more of what is asked of them, while the economy fails to meet them halfway.

Young people are entering an economy reshaped by technology, geopolitics, demographics and the climate transition. The gap between talent and opportunity is growing, not shrinking.

This must be closed — and practical solutions already exist. The SA Youth platform serves a network of 5-million youth and 3,000 employer partners, with 2.2-million recorded earning opportunities — of which 8% are net new jobs the platform helped create.

Most of these opportunities are in the services sector.

In a country with few formal sector jobs, the services sector offers more doorways to opportunity. It accounts for two-thirds of GDP and already absorbs a large share of young workers.

• Data from SA Youth shows that retail alone employs nearly 20% of working youth.
• The Global Business Services sector has created over 179,000 jobs since 2010, with strong inclusion of women and youth.
• Tourism welcomed more than 10.5-million visitors in 2025 — a 17.6% increase — and could generate up to 750,000 new jobs with coordinated reforms.

Importantly, these sectors offer opportunities that are accessible, scalable and future-relevant.

With the right investments, they can become the backbone of a youth economy — if we invest in job quality, market-responsive skilling and credentialing, connectivity, industrial policy alignment and employer participation.

While reform of the skills system is crucial, employers sit at the centre of this shift. Without their participation in identifying demand, co‑designing curricula and co‑financing pathways, the skills system will always lag behind the labour market.

The skills revolution required is structural and systemic, not incremental. These are the three essential shifts:

1. Demand-led, adaptive training systems: we need curricula that evolve with industry, especially in digital and AI, which threatens to redefine and not erase entry-level work. Work-readiness training should be practical and suited to work contexts and youth needs. Work-integrated learning that simulates real-world experience must scale. Employers must be co-designers, not passive consumers.
2. Stackable, modular skills: young people need capabilities they can combine and reuse as jobs evolve — not single credentials that expire.
3. Outcomes-based funding with employer skin in the game: funding must reward real employment outcomes, not training throughput. The Jobs Boost and Jobs Fund employment models already show this works — earning opportunities are being prioritised.

The success of this revolution is also underscored by investing in future-proofed infrastructure that works.

Platforms like SA Youth will be critical to growing the employability of young people, managing transitions, smoothing labour-market churn, and keeping young people connected to opportunity.

With innovations like an inclusive CV and matching algorithms that are designed to optimise both recruitment and access, the SA Youth platform offers a more inclusive alternative for making young talent visible to employers.

SA can choose a growth path with space for young people.

A service-led economy, powered by the infrastructure and capability of the SA Youth platform, together with catalytic private sector-led initiatives like Youth Employment Service, can start to shift the dial on youth unemployment.

Strategic — and not reactive — skilling, including AI adoption, gives us levers we did not have a decade ago.

If we align skills, incentives and infrastructure with the economy that is emerging, not the one we are leaving behind, youth will not wait at the margins, they will power SA’s future.

• About the authors: Kasthuri Soni is CEO and Sharmi Surianarain is chief impact officer of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. This non-profit social enterprise is an anchor partner of SA Youth.

This article was sponsored by Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator.