Give metro youth job skills

THE Nelson Mandela Metro, according to the national census in 2011, is one of the eight category A metros in South Africa. However the level of poverty, unemployment and inequality prevalent in the metro often raises questions as to who are the true beneficiaries of the category A rating we are so proud of?

With an unemployment rate of 36.6% and a youth unemployment rate of 47.3% (census 2011), there is a deep rooted crisis in the structure of the economy in the metro due to its inability to address the basic dignity of employment of almost half the number of youth in the metro. This is while the metro shows promising signs in the finance, transport, community services, trade and manufacturing sectors of the metro as those sectors are shown to be responsible for the primary employment production in the metro.

But then the question remains: why do these sectors exclude such a great deal of the working population of the metro in terms of job provision? Do we need to expand these sectors or perhaps explore other sectors to combat unemployment and poverty among the displaced citizens of the metro?

The answers to those questions will have to come from the very displaced citizens, mainly the youth in the metro. However to enable that process the metro will have to shift a greater focus to locate internally and investigate the potential in the youth, and provide a grooming platform for the youth to find expression in relation to skills development and innovation.

This will transform and blossom the economy of the metro to address the unemployment that has a well-known relationship with high crime rates and immense poverty.

Provide support to the unemployed youth, give us the relevant skills that will be in line with the comparative advantaged sectors of the economy in the metro and we will do the rest.

Place priority on skills development, do not isolate us.

We will prosper the metro.

Rowan Sampson, NMMU SRC deputy secretary-general