Government is starting to treat skills, work experience and enterprise as one pathway into work. Youth Capital welcomes the shift. The real test now is whether young people feel it in their own journeys into work.
CAPE TOWN — Youth Capital welcomes the stronger emphasis on connected pathways into employment outlined by the Minister of Employment and Labour, Nomakhosazana Meth. She set out this thinking at the launch of the R1 billion Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and National Empowerment Fund (NEF) partnership in Johannesburg on 25 September, ahead of the Presidential Job Summit.
Government is starting to talk about pathways
The Minister described the repositioned Labour Activation Programme around three connected pillars: skills shaped by real demand; workplace experience and placements; and enterprise support that enables micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to create work.
She also stressed that government programmes should work together as a “pathway into employment”, and that the different routes available to young people should be “visible, credible and connected”.
For Youth Capital, this framing matters. It reflects an understanding of youth unemployment that has shaped our advocacy for years. Young people navigate education, skills development, work experience, job-seeking and enterprise as one economic journey, even when policy treats them as separate portfolios.
What young people have been telling us
That is why Youth Capital’s own work has consistently centred three priorities: meaningful first work experience; skills for the world of work; and accessible entry points into the labour market. These priorities emerged from the experiences young people have shared with us. They also reflect a growing body of evidence showing that young people struggle to access the opportunities that do exist, to move between them and to build from one opportunity to the next.
“The important shift is that the youth unemployment challenge is increasingly being understood as a pathways issue, with separate interventions seen as parts of one system,” says Buhlebethu Magwaza, Project Lead at Youth Capital. “Young people have been telling us for years that their work journeys are fragmented. They can complete training and still have nowhere to use it. They can gain experience that is not recognised. They can participate in a programme and still be left asking what comes next. The stronger focus on connecting skills, experience and economic opportunities is therefore a welcome one.”
The alignment is particularly clear in the Minister’s assertion that government should “know where an opportunity lies before we train someone for it”. She also emphasised creating more places where young people can gain work experience, and ensuring that those opportunities offer a serious prospect of progression.
These principles are central to the way Youth Capital has approached youth unemployment. Skills development matters, but its value is limited when it is disconnected from real labour-market demand. Work experience matters, but its impact is weakened when it is not recognised or cannot be carried into the next opportunity. Enterprise can open valuable routes into economic participation, but young people and small businesses need access to finance, markets and enabling systems for those opportunities to become sustainable.
The real test is whether young people feel it
Taken together, this points to a wider shift towards understanding how the different parts of the employment system connect, and how individual programmes add up to something larger. That shift matters. But the real test will be whether young people experience it.
If skills must respond to actual demand, young people should not continue cycling through training programmes without a credible opportunity at the end of them. If workplace experience is intended to create progression, ecosystem partners and government need to track what happens after placements end, and not only how many people enter programmes.
If MSMEs are expected to absorb more young people, those businesses need access to the finance, markets and public support required to create and sustain work. And if government programmes are intended to function as pathways into employment, young people should be able to move between them without repeatedly returning to the starting point.
Public employment has to lead somewhere
This is particularly relevant to public employment. Youth Capital has consistently argued that public employment can provide a critical first work experience at a time when the economy is not generating enough opportunities. But its value should extend beyond the duration of a placement. Young people should leave with recognised experience, transferable skills, stronger networks and clearer routes towards further learning, livelihoods and work.
“The question cannot only be whether a young person entered a programme,” says Magwaza. “We must also ask what that programme made possible next. If someone spends six or twelve months working, what have they gained that another employer will recognise? What skills have they built? What relationships have they formed? What opportunity can they move into next? That is what turns an intervention into a pathway.”
Looking for work costs money
The Minister’s acknowledgement that “waiting has a cost” is equally telling. For young people, unemployment is not a cost-free period. Looking for work requires money for transport, data, documentation and applications. Time spent moving between training programmes, short-term opportunities and unsuccessful applications also carries a cost, particularly for young people who have very little financial margin to begin with.
“Recognising that waiting has a cost helps shift the conversation away from seeing unemployment as an individual failure,” says Magwaza. “Young people are already investing time, money and energy in trying to enter the economy. The responsibility of the system is to make that journey more navigable: with clearer information, stronger connections between opportunities and fewer points at which young people fall through the gaps.”
What happens next
The repositioning of the Labour Activation Programme provides a real opportunity to put this thinking into practice. There is growing alignment around the need to connect skills, meaningful work experience and accessible routes into earning opportunities.
The Labour Activation Programme has been allocated R36.6 billion over the medium term, with a target of 605,000 beneficiaries. The task now is to match this alignment with the budgets, institutional coordination, employer commitments and accountability mechanisms required to make those pathways real. That includes clear reporting on how many of those beneficiaries are young people, and where they go next.
The language is shifting, and the architecture is beginning to align. The real measure of progress will be whether young people can feel that change in their own journeys into work.
ENDS
Issued by Youth Capital
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