Following this year’s Youth Day celebration, President Cyril Ramaphosa pointed out that while entrepreneurship is a key economic growth driver, rates of entrepreneurial activity in South Africa are relatively low compared with other countries.

In commemoration of June 16, Ramaphosa acknowledged in his weekly letter to the nation on Tuesday, South Africa’s high youth unemployment.

“The extent and scale of the youth unemployment crisis means that government should not focus solely on placing more young people in formal, existing jobs, but that it must bolster skills development and foster an entrepreneurial culture,” he said.

One of the challenges, Ramaphosa said, was the mismatch between the skills available in the workforce and market need.

He said closing this gap should be a critical priority for government, adding that it was working to foster an enabling environment that allowed more young people to become self-employed.

“This is why we are investing in vocational training. We have increased funding to technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges and subsidies for the operationalisation of new campuses. Each year, we are placing thousands of learners and graduates into workplace experience opportunities,” he said.

The Presidential Youth Employment Intervention has also been working with the National Youth Development Agency and the Department of Small Business Development to provide business support, financial and otherwise, to young people.

“Through all these initiatives, the State has supported millions of young South Africans with work opportunities, work experience and skills development. However, we can only vastly scale up the employment of young people with greater private sector involvement,” he said.

He urged business and other public sector entities to use government’s platform SAYouth.mobi to provide more pathways for young people to earn and learn, and said the private sector should use all available mechanisms, including the Employee Tax Incentive, to hire young people.

He highlighted that there were now over 4.7-million young people registered on the SAYouth.mobi platform and the Department of Employment and Labour’s employment services database.

Ramaphosa noted that through these platforms, young people had been supported to access over 1.6-million earning opportunities.

He explained that registration was free, and the app was zero rated, meaning it can be accessed without incurring any data charges.