Title: South African Youth Council Presentation to Parliament Portfolio Committee on Labour 07 June 2006
1South African Youth CouncilPresentation to
Parliament Portfolio Committee on Labour07 June
2006
2INTRODUCTION
- 1992 formation of the National Youth Development
Forum as the united platform and the voice for
the youth - 1995 the collapse of the National Youth
Development Forum - Reasons for the collapse, Institutional capacity
problems, vague mandate, No clear programmes ect. - 1996 National Steering Committee was formed at
NEDLAC to facilitate the process towards
institutionalisation of youth voice in policy
process. - 1997 South African Youth Council was formed
3SOUTH AFRICAN YOUTH COUNCIL
South African Youth Council (SAYC) is a voluntary
civil society youth organisation that represents
the interests and aspirations of various youth
organisations affiliated to it. It caters for a
broad range of youth organisations from all walks
of life and its categories of representation
includes, but not limited to, political, youth,
students, religious, cultural, sporting and
voluntary youth orgaisations. SAYC derives its
existence as a common law organisation that has
been incorporated not for gain and it is
therefore recognised in law in terms of the
Non-profit Organisations Act No. 71 of 1997 in
that it is a separate entity from the members
which constitute it, that it has a continuous
existence, and that it has been incorporated not
for gain. SAYC as a civil society organistaion
and a non-governmental youth organisation remains
the largest youth representatives in terms of
its affiliates and the wide spectrum of youth
these affiliates represents. Our engagement with
SAYC is therefore highly critical. Chief amongst
its function is to mobilise youth organisations
to ensure their participation in building and
entrenching democracy in South Africa. Below
find a breakdown structure of who is SAYC
4Political Youth Formulations
Volunteer Youth Orgs
Student Formulations
Issue Based
Religious Youth
Disabled Youth
South African Youth Council
Economic Empowerment Youth
Rural Youth
Youth Workers
Youth Clubs
Service Providers
Arts Cultural Youth
Youth Sport
5YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- INTERNATIONAL TRENDS
- 160 Million of People in the World are Unemployed
Today, - 40 of those without proper jobs are young
people, - Youth in employment are either lowest paid,
contract casuals without protection or self
employed without business, - In Developing Countries a rising number of young
people work in the informal economy where they
earn lower wages and are often subjected to poor
or even exploitative working conditions, - In both Developed and developing countries,
significant portions of the population live below
defined poverty lines, - Youth work has become what is known as the
intermediary zone between the formal and the
informal economy characterized by casualisation
of Labour
6YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- SOUTH AFRICAN SITUATION
- Approximately 40 0f SA pop. Is Youth
- The average official unemployment rate between
March 2004 March 2005 stood between 27,9 and
26,5 (Stats SA 2005) The figure excludes
discouraged workers, - The unemployment rate was 40,5 including the
discouraged workers, the figure remained
unchanged for the entire year - The absorption rate of the unemployed is low,
resulting in continuous poverty and inequality, - Whiles unemployment has risen, wages have
declined - In 2004, 39 of the population earned under R
1000 a month, the same figure as ten years ago, - The purchasing power of R 1000 fell by well over
half, - Increased pressure on disposal incomes of the
poor from expenses such as school fees,
transportation costs, this effectively diminished
the potential for capital accumulation and
savings, - This has Entrenched earning patterns and income
disparities
7YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- SOUTH AFRICAN SITUATION
- While growth has destabilized it has not seen
the creation of sustainable formal sector jobs to
decimate the current high levels of unemployment
and poverty - Instead we have seen large scale of job-losses
and casualisation in other sectors, - Critical to job creation is to establish the
relationship between the growth strategy and
broader human development, - Over 70 of workers in the informal economy
report a monthly income below R 1000 - About 50 of those working in the informal
economy report an income below R500 (HSRC Review
2003)
8YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- Youth between the ages of 15 24 forms 33 of
the working age, they only constitute 10 of the
employed (Labour Force Survey September 2002) - The LBF data Survey shows that youth are about
60 of the working age population, they form 70
of all the unemployed in the society - Of the 8 million unemployed in the South African
Labour Market 5,5 million is between the ages of
15-34 - The figures suggests that the current levels of
economic growth are not high enough to can absorb
the large number of new job seekers entering the
labour market every year
9YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- Youth challenges include rural-urban poverty,
unemployment, rapid urbanisation etc. - Youth need innovation ongoing reflection
- We call on joint planning with all stakeholders
- Most researches on employment patterns have been
urban bias than rural bias. - Youth unemployment has much more profound effect
on young women than young men.
10YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- CAUSES OF YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- Employers feel they are too young, too
inexperienced and physically and socially too
immature - Some analysts feel that the problem lies in youth
having the wrong attitudes they prefer urban to
rural living, they prefer white-collar to
blue-collar work, they lack discipline, and so
on. - Other see the problem as an inappropriate
education that is too academically-inclined,
which encourages students to aspire to
white-collar jobs, and which does not impact
useful and technical skills.
11YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- INTERVENTIONS
- Human Resource Development through learnerships
and other initiatives (How sustainable are the
learnerships, many young people do not find
employment after training instead they return to
unemployment) - SETAs are not having enough impact on job
creation - Expanded Public Works Programme (Do not create
sustainable income, create temporary jobs) - National Youth Service Programme (Ho many
sustainable jobs has it created)
12YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- RECOMMENDATIONS
- Create Worker cooperatives to take part in and
manage EPWP Labour Intensive Construction
Projects - Conduct impact assessment/analysis on
learnerships over the past five years, - Increased access to higher education
- Increase the social security net,
- Government should introduce incentive schemes for
people who return to rural areas for service
delivery, particularly infrastructure development - Government should accelerate land restitution and
redistribution so that land can be available for
youth to can exercise and practice agricultural
scheme projects
13YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- RECOMMENDATIONS
- Because of historical problems with access and
quality of education, literacy and numeracy must
be regarded as important parts of training. - Promoting self-employment through community and
youth enterprises - Mobile training units for rural areas (YMCA
Mobile Training unit Programme in Fiji) - Ensure that employment schemes do not expose
young women to low wage, super exploitative
employment aimed at competition in overseas
markets
14YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- RECOMMENDATIONS
- Ensure that in all employment schemes young women
are not employed specifically because they can be
paid extremely low rates and for most of these
young women employment last for only few years
while they are young and unmarried - Ensure that Labour regime is enforceable in all
the proposed employment schemes
15YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
- CONCLUSION
- Youth in particular need expanding economy as
they are largely reliant on the creation of new
job opportunities.
THANK YOU
Tel 011 403 6392 Fax 011 403 8278 bmokgothu_at_nwpg
.gov.zasiphosayc_at_hotmail.com