PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore youth graduate unemployment and unemployability as a development problem in South Africa.Design/methodology/approachThis exploratory study applied a qualitative research method to elicit the perspectives of youth graduates regarding their unemployment and unemployability. A total of 30 face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with unemployed youth who recently graduated from five South African universities.FindingsThe results indicate that, as youth graduate unemployment increases in South Africa, graduates become hopeless in terms of securing employment. The participants attributed their unemployment to multidimensional factors that include limited demand in the labour market, skills mismatch and lack of work experience.Research limitations/implicationsThis research exclusively focused on graduates from five South African universities; hence, the results of this small qualitative study cannot be generalised to the entire South African population. However, this paper offers important insights that may form the foundation for a nationwide study on a related topic.Originality/valueThis paper presents important insights that influence policy makers, government and other relevant stakeholders to develop alternative solutions to youth graduate unemployment. This paper recommends that government should play a critical role in bridging the gap between higher education and industry in order to address youth graduate unemployment. It also calls for a more cooperative effort between government, higher learning institutions and employers in order to create job opportunities for youth graduates in South Africa.
One of the pressing concerns for governments and policy makers across the world is youth unemployment. What is even more devastating is the growing graduate unemployment, particularly in developing countries, and South Africa is no exception. Graduate unemployment in South Africa continues to increase at an alarming rate. Without drastic interventions, this socio-economic problem may sadly double in size in the next decade. Work experience programmes, such as internships, are increasingly supported to address youth unemployment, particularly among graduates. However, the effectiveness of the current interventions to the unemployment problem are questionable. This paper draws from the perspectives of 50 participants to explore the determinants of post-internship graduate unemployment. In particular, this paper adopts the lenses of mismatch theory of unemployment to explain why young people are vulnerable in the labour market irrespective of their education and work experience. The examined perspectives revealed that, beyond limited labour market demand, there is also an increasing “work experience-job mismatch” leading to post-internship graduate unemployment. Due to the number of factors, including the skills mismatch problem, the transition from higher education to full-time employment is difficult for many graduates. Received: 30 November 2021 / Accepted: 11 February 2022 / Published: 5 March 2022
This article explores the perceived barriers inhibiting the youth’s access to higher education. The article goes beyond the hard barriers to explore “lack of aspiration” as a soft barrier impeding access to higher education amongst the youth. In this article, the term “soft barrier” refers to lack of aspiration, a less tangible aspect that is much more subjective and less easily measurable. On the other hand, “hard barriers” are understood as factual issues that are easily recognisable and measurable, financial issues, for instance. This article interrogates lack of access to tertiary education as a key development problem in South Africa. Hence, the youth are underdeveloped socially, economically, and academically. The article draws from youth experiences to interrogate inadequate access to tertiary education and its impact on youth vulnerability. In this qualitative study, youth residing at Kenneth Gardens were interviewed to generate data. This study found lack of aspiration as a major soft barrier impeding the youth from accessing higher education. Among other factors, this study also found financial issues, informational barriers, and inability to meet the minimum university entry requirements as the underlying hard barriers impeding young people from accessing higher education. Keywords: aspirations, barriers, capabilities, development, higher education and youth
In this article, I explore the relationship between the internship programme and the prospects for youth graduate employability as perceived by interns, mentors and HR managers. Unemployment, particularly youth graduate unemployment, is a major development problem. It is worrying that unemployment continues to grow despite major interventions. Among other interventions to overcome youth graduate unemployment was an internship programme established to provide graduates with work experience meant to improve their employability. However, it remains controversial whether graduate internship increases employability prospects of the youth. In this article, I seek to solve this puzzle. A total of 50 semi-structured interviews were conducted with graduate interns and staff members of the eThekwini Municipality in South Africa to elicit data. The results indicate that internship is not always the key to employability and youth graduates often require more than just internship experience to secure employment. In this article, I therefore recommend better internship planning and development. This could improve the role of the internship in graduates’ transition to employment.
This paper explores the obstacles that prevent young people from accessing higher education. Inadequate and unequal access to higher education internationally and in South Africa, in particular, has undermined young people’s potential to contribute to national development. In South Africa, limited access to higher education for the majority remains a major problem. Hence, young people are underdeveloped socially, economically and academically. Thus, lack of educational opportunities relegates young people to the periphery of the mainstream socio-economic development. This paper uses Kenneth Gardens as a case study to interrogate a lack of access to higher education and its implications for youth vulnerability and non-participation in their own development. The research was qualitative in nature. The imperial data were solicited from semi-structured interviews with Kenneth Gardens youth. In addition, participant observation was used as a research instrument. The major findings from the research were the lack of aspirations as one of the major obstacles that hinder youth from accessing higher education, and the research also found that lack of funding, lack of awareness and inability to meet the minimum university entry requirements were underlying factors. Additionally, a lack of career guidance in schools and unemployed graduates were found to be fundamental for poor access to higher education.
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