Tackling youth unemployment will require input from multiple stakeholders and measures, programmes and initiatives that pursue job creation will need to be effectively structured to ensure meaningful outcomes.

This was a key message from a roundtable discussion held at the Directors Event, in Sandton, on Friday.

The fifth edition of this event saw leaders from across the country tackling the country’s most pressing issues through roundtable discussions moderated by media personalities.

University of the Free State lecturer Gcina Mtengwane commented that while internship programmes provide job opportunities, these should not merely provide jobs for the sake of providing jobs, but should upskill people socially and professionally.

Citing his own observations, he noted that often, people come out of programmes demotivated and unskilled, which was counterproductive.

He emphasised the need to develop standard structures for programmes, and have monitoring measures in place, to ensure that the outcomes were equal to the intent.

Sector education and training authority entrepreneurship and cooperative development executive manager Liesel Köstlich said tackling youth unemployment would require multiple interventions from various role-players.

She noted that the challenge was how to integrate these into reality.

She encouraged the adoption of a long-term approach, away from the typical short-term approach. For example, a qualification alone was not enough; there was a need to couple applied learning through peer networks with creative, problem-solving abilities in the workplace, and the ability to identify and solve consumer problems in the market, which would result in entrepreneurial opportunities.

Big Brands Media CEO Lebogang Ramadoki, meanwhile, called for a mindset change away from waiting for government to create jobs, in spite of these being promised.

In this vein, he emphasised the need for initiatives and programmes to have effective community engagement to reach the youth and to which they could relate to, so as to properly influence them.

Youth Employment Service CEO Dr Tashima Ismail-Saville highlighted the need for programmes and initiatives to be structured to engender holistic training of youth to prepare them for the world of work and to run their own businesses.

She said it was very difficult for those with creative ideas to start a business – while they had the vision and creativity, they did not have real business skills and knowledge to effectively enact those ideas. Therefore, training should equip the youth with these tools.

Moreover, an important facet to consider was the psychology of running a business and of being in the working world, which the holistic training should also encompass.

Nedbank COO Mfundo Nkuhlu stated that there was no silver bullet to fix youth unemployment.

He reiterated that solutions would have to be long term, while simultaneously tackling immediate issues.