NEWS ANALYSIS: Shining a light on jobs
Throwing more money at formal training is not the solution to youth unemployment — it’s far trickier than that, but fortunately some institutions are showing the way
SA’s youth training system is too focused on formal skills development and is failing to address the core problem, that of bridging young people’s transition to the world of work and actually landing them their first job. This was a consensus finding of a "Solutions Exchange" summit co-hosted by the presidency, the Human Resource Development Council of SA and the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, outside Cape Town last month. The delegates agreed that some of the focus (and funding) needs to be diverted from skills development to a work-seeker support package. This would reduce the costs associated with looking for work, prepare young people for the workplace, and actively channel them into jobs. As a result of SA’s unique spatial geography, in which millions of young people reside in townships far from economic nodes, skills deficiencies are not the only barrier, and maybe not even the biggest barrier, to finding work. According to the Siyakha study from the Centre for Social ...
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