The Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) should be able to contribute meaningfully to ascertaining why South Africa’s unemployment rate remained stubbornly high, at 27.7%, Deputy President David Mabuza said in an address at the twentieth HRDC meeting, in Johannesburg.

He noted that recent Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) figures painted a bleak picture of the status of young South Africans, showing that one in three young people were not in employment, education or training (NEETs).
“In May, Stats SA reported that, in the first quarter of 2018, South Africa’s NEETs comprised 3.3-million people aged between 15 and 24. “Our plans for the future must urgently address the plight of these young people. Behind these figures and statistics are the dreams of young people that are, sadly, going to waste,” he said.

Mabuza added that, globally, it had become apparent that the development of small, medium-sized and microenterprises was key to reducing poverty and unemployment.

“We are also fully committed to sharpening our policy instruments to address the critical and scarce skills that our nation faces.

“To succeed . . . the Department of Labour, Stats SA, academia and industry should work even more closely to identify critical skills shortages and the misalignments in the country’s supply and demand of these critical skills,” Mabuza noted.

He highlighted that South Africa required more in-depth and evidence-based research on the number of artisans required in various fields.

He stated that it was also important to understand the demands of the modern global economy.

“It is increasingly a knowledge-based economy, shaped around Big Data and technological disruptions.”

Most importantly, Mabuza said, it was a modern global economy where traditional boundaries and disciplines were increasingly dissolving, overlapping and redefining specialisations.

“Even as we embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution and plan to succeed in it, we must be mindful that many of our people remain poor and underskilled.”

He pointed out that South Africa’s Industrial Policy Action Plan enjoined the country to incentivise investment in labour-absorbing industries.