Education gives you edge in job market
Meet two young South Africans who make my point about the value of a good basic education and hard work
It is the worst possible news to come in the month we celebrate Youth Day. Stats SA recently announced the official unemployment rate was 46.3% among youth (15-34) in this first quarter of 2021. Under the expanded definition of unemployment, which includes discouraged jobseekers, youth unemployment stands at a shocking 74.7%. The minister of labour reported that about 1.3 million youth (15-24) sit at home for three months, but more than a million remain without work for 12 months.
What does education have to do with all of this? The official unemployment rate for university graduates is only 9.3%. More than half of the 7.2 million unemployed persons in this first quarter (52.4% to be exact) had education achievements below matric. (By the way, we have more unemployed persons in SA than the total populations of Namibia, Botswana and Lesotho combined!)...
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