By Miranda Lusiba
MY COLUMN for this month is motivated by the story that I saw of the Gauteng Premier: Panyaza Lesufi asking the province’s youth to bring their CVs on #youthday for job opportunities instead of attending the annual commemorative events with long speeches.
The fact that the Gauteng government opted to try and identify employment opportunities for the youth of its province instead of speeches is definitely a great idea. This is what I wish for all the youth of South Africa – that we can come up with such innovative ideas to help tomorrow’s leaders.
It is a known fact that the high unemployment rate in South Africa is one of the pressing issues for our young people today. Don’t get me wrong, it is still important to commemorate and remember the sacrifices made by the 1976 youth, however most South Africans – at the moment – would prefer solutions instead of speeches that do not yet yield tangible results.
As a country, we are good at planning but not so much on execution and that is unfortunately what most people are now impatiently looking for.
When I watched some of the videos that were shared on social media of youth that responded to the Gauteng government’s call – it was sad to see the incredibly long queues of youth that took their CVs in.
The exceptionally long queues are a clear indication of how bad the unemployment issue is in the country. I’m however still optimistic that if we continue to come up with such innovative ideas to help our youth – that we might just get this right.
What I would like to encourage government to do as well is to continue to help the youth to identify opportunities for entrepreneurship. With our shrinking economy, it is proving to be very difficult to continue creating jobs. It is therefore important to complement these employment creation efforts with opportunities for youth to start their own businesses as well.
Youth need to continue to be empowered with business skills so that they can use what they have studied at university and convert these into business ideas or services. This is another way to help address the issue of huge number of the youth that is sitting at home with diplomas or degrees – looking for jobs.
I really do wish that other provinces can follow suit and come up with proactive and innovative ideas to support our youth. There’s nothing that frustrates me more than seeing the number of youth that are roaming the streets during the day with absolutely nothing to do. You know what they say about the dangers of an idling mind – our youth can easily find themselves getting involved in nonsensical things. I hope and pray that their situations change, before they end up engaging in habits that could lead to disruptive behaviours.
It is sad to come across youth that are still looking for internship jobs at the age of 27 or 28. During our time, even though it was also not easy to find jobs – but by the time you are 23 or 24 – you’d at least be in your entry level job or be doing your internship.
If most of today’s youth started working immediately after tertiary – a lot of them would reach 30-years of age working either in a junior or middle management level job. I do agree though that it is never too late to start – today’s youth can definitely still make a difference to their lives and their families even if they get their first jobs at the age of 28. However, it is still sad to see a graduate sitting at home looking for a job – five years after finishing tertiary level.
I do believe that getting a job at a more matured age also has its advantages.
I‘d hope that this would mean that most of them will be wiser with money and not make the same mistakes that we made in our early 20’s.
My wish for the youth of South Africa – as per the message that I reposted recently on LinkedIn – this includes the young people in my hometown here in Komani, as well as the ones that took their CVs to the #youthday event in Gauteng – that their job applications can be successful, so that they can change their situations at respective home.
Image (Miranda Lusiba, is the Founding Director of Strangé Consulting – a boutique PR Agency specialising in Communication, Freelance Writing, Media Relations, Reputation Management and Media Training).
