Minister Nomakhosazana Meth: SA Youth National Leadership Convening
Leaders of business, labour and civil society;
Representatives of youth organisations and development partners;
Young South Africans;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning.
It is wonderful to see so many business leaders, employers, industry bodies and social partners gathered here today, united by a shared commitment to young South Africans. Your investment, bold approaches to hiring and commitment to building skills are opening real pathways to earning and giving us every reason to feel hopeful about what we can achieve together.
The Department of Employment and Labour continues to strengthen pathways into work by redesigning the Labour Activation Programme around real employment outcomes, including work-integrated learning for 20,000 TVET students, workplace experience for graduates completing professional qualifications, and Project 20K placements that give unemployed graduates practical experience while strengthening the state’s capacity to protect workers. We are also expanding the enterprise pathway through a R1 billion UIF–National Empowerment Fund partnership to help qualifying black-owned businesses grow, develop skills and create or retain at least 30,000 jobs over five years.
A defining achievement of the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention is the SA Youth Pathways Network, led by the Department. Built through a remarkable partnership between government, business and civil society, and managed and operated by Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, SA Youth has become our country’s national labour-market infrastructure, supporting more than five million young work-seekers to access jobs, work experience, skills, enterprise support and other pathways to earning, and already connecting more than 1.7 million young people to earning opportunities across the economy.
WorkSA gives us the opportunity to take this work to an entirely new scale. We know its goal of creating 1.8 million additional earning opportunities by 2030 is within reach because the SA Youth Pathways Network sits at its centre, connecting young people to four pathways into the economy, namely formal employment, self-employment and enterprise, public employment, and work experience and learning that leads to work.
Now we must act with urgency and ambition. We will deepen this partnership and connect SA Youth with ESSA and government systems to build one harmonised pathway to opportunity. Government must lead by placing every learnership, internship, workplace placement and youth employment opportunity on SA Youth, and I call on business to match that commitment by opening more doors and hiring for potential.
Mr President, it is a privilege to introduce a leader who has dedicated his tenure to placing young people at the centre of our country’s drive for jobs and inclusive growth. Through the Presidential Youth Employment Intervention, you have brought government, business and civil society together to turn commitment into action, creating more than two million opportunities for young South Africans. Now is the moment for all of us to get behind your vision, bring the full power of our partnerships to WorkSA and move with the urgency and ambition that young people deserve. As you lead us into the next phase through WorkSA, we do so with renewed urgency, stronger partnership and real confidence in what this generation can achieve.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honour to introduce the President of the Republic of South Africa, His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa.
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