By Bronwyn M Singh
As South Africans gear up to celebrate Youth Day on 16 June, many are feeling rather sombre because of the soaring rate of inflation. This year marks the 46th anniversary of the student uprising in Soweto on 16 June 1976.
In 1994, the new democratic government declared the day as National Youth Day and June as Youth Month. Many youth, however, feel as if the government has let them down dismally, and all that was sacrificed on that day in 1976 was in vain.
According to Statistics SA, young people are still struggling in the South African labour market. The official unemployment rate in 2021 was 32.6% with 46.3% among young people aged 15 to 34, implying that almost one in every two young people in the labour force did not have a job in the first quarter of 2021.
The burden of unemployment is also concentrated amongst the youth as they count for 59.5% of the total number of unemployed persons and is high irrespective of education level. Despite the fact that the National Budget included R5.2 billion in tax relief to help support the economic recovery, including incentives for youth employment in 2022, issues of unemployment remain.
Speaking to the Newcastle Express, Verona Kushial, 18, said that she has not yet had the opportunity to further her studies and finds it difficult to find employment. “I matriculated last year with a B aggregate and also applied for bursaries because my single mother cannot afford to pay for my studies. I really want to study marketing. Needless to say, I have been turned away because of my skin colour and because I am not ‘poor enough’. It is very unfair. I cannot even find a job because I have no experience to offer,” said Kushial.
Ruaan Steenkamp, 25, has returned to Newcastle after graduating with a degree in communications and said that he too is struggling to find career opportunities. “I stayed in Johannesburg for a while but then decided to return home because I have not been able to find permanent employment despite having qualifications. Then there is the issue of having qualifications and not having experience,” said Steenkamp.
He further explained that opportunities are not being evenly distributed amongst the youth. “I really feel that there is still a hum of racism in this country, only now it is the other way around. Being a White male in this country is very difficult as I feel that I cannot get employment because I have to pay for what happened all those years back. It really isn’t right. My best friend is a person of colour, so why must we still pay?” he said.
Sha-Lee-Sha Mansen, a 20-year-old who is currently studying for her Bachelors in Human Resource Management, said that there is too much corruption in the government that is not being dealt with. “These funds that are misused by the government can rather be allocated towards funding entrepreneurship and enrichment programmes, for all races, as well as bursaries which will alleviate the rate of unemployment,” said Mansen.
She further said that government needs to reconsider their financial allocations as the youth are the future of the country and are currently being let down by the government.
