NEWS ANALYSIS: Employers need to give army of unemployed youth a fair go
THE story of South Africa’s past and present failures, and the seeds of its future conflicts, are contained in a single declarative sentence on page 13 of the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS)."Approximately 3.3-million of the 10.4-million youth aged 15-24 years were not in employment, education or training in the third quarter of 2013." This means nearly a third of those most in need of guidance, support and opportunities are being systematically let down.And as these young people grow older, their futures look increasingly bleaker.The data show that the longer you are without a job, the less likely you are to ever get one.According to Statistics South Africa, which publishes the quarterly survey and other employment-related data, of the 33.5-million people of working age, some 4.6-million are unemployed.On top of that another 2.2-million have given up on finding a job and, in the cavalier and cruel designation of the statisticians, no longer even count as unemployed — as...
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