Johannesburg – South Africa’s unemployment rate has risen to 35,3% according to Stats SA. The unemployment rate for graduates and the youth has seen an increase but there is one organisation trying to bring that down.
Unemployed Graduates Association of South Africa (UNGRAASA) is an NGO founded in 2019 by graduates who found it difficult to enter the labour market. They found they did not possess certain skills which would make it easier to be employed or even start their own businesses. Thus, the organisation was created to cater for these needs.
Innocent Khumalo, a member of UNGRAASA, detailed what the organisation does and those who qualify for their assistance.
“What we do is we link the unemployed youth and the skilled youth to job opportunities. We also conduct seminars where we call your private companies and then we also help our unemployed graduates with skills such as writing a CV and how to conduct or how to behave in an interview. We also refer them to reskilling because we are in partnership with other companies and other institutions like the Growth Institute in Johannesburg and the University of Johannesburg. We refer the unskilled youth to these institutions so that they could do reskilling … We lead the unemployed graduates to job opportunities.”
Reskilling refers to learning an entirely new skill for a different job. Khumalo has found that sometimes a person has studied something but there is a gap in the market for a separate set of skills. The organisation helps to get people reskilled at no extra charge to the individual.
“We are in partnership with the Growth Institute. We don’t make people pay because in this partnership there is a Memorandum of Understanding that what we do is we give you those people. You train those people and then you also give them a period of experience of what you have trained them. With their line of connection, they know, and they have a pool of companies that they work with. Once we’re done training you then you also find your service or your internship among the companies that are in partnership with the institute.”
Now the organisation is dealing with business management, IT, and marketing opportunities. They only work with those who have signed up with them. From this pool they determine which reskilling programs should be focused on.
“We’ve got about close to 20 000 unemployed graduates on our database in various qualifications. We contact only those people who have contacted us in that fashion and then we make it a point that from the opportunities that will be there at that moment, we give it out to them … because we’re also trying to run away from this tendency of just attending for the sake of being counted as someone who has something only to find that you do not even need that skill, or you are not even interested. We are just willing to help those who need help.”
The organisation also helps those who aren’t graduates and those who wish to upskill which focuses on adding to an existing skill set within a role.
“With your metric, with your grade ten and your grade eleven reports, you can also use that to access some of the phases that we offer.”
The current rate of unemployment is at its highest since the Quarterly Labour Force Survey was first introduced back in 2008. According to Stats SA, in the last ten years, unemployment has risen from 23,8% by 11,5%. These figures might not be accurate with Stats SA reporting that the response rate has declined from an average of 76,9% mid-year 2020 to a low of 44,6% by the end of 2021.
The low response rate concerns Khumalo as he believes the number of unemployed graduates is much higher.
“We believe that these statistics are not true. They are not a true reflection of what is happening on the ground. You may ask where these figures come from, how they are derived because even at your house you haven’t even had anyone who came from Census. Even the Census today is still counting. It’s still an issue of discussion. This joblessness in our country is a pandemic on its own and no one really cares.”
Most of the graduates that come to the organisation are those that Khumalo said have no connections and are from disadvantaged backgrounds. The municipalities are not helping to give graduates any hope for the future as well.
“There’s also an issue of maladministration [in municipalities]. This begins here on the current level. This is where those people who are responsible for the community next to them because we may look at it at the national level, but the funds are being released down to the municipalities. There is maladministration, misuse of funds whereby they should be investing and becoming innovative to help small businesses for unemployed graduates or youth to succeed but then all those things do not happen because of nepotism and the high level of inequality.”
He also turned his attention to the national level which he believes is being run by people who are not educated enough to solve the issues of today.
“If our government can derive a strategy that would say if we were qualified in public management and governance therefore you can lead in a certain department … But right now, what do they do? We see that because we’ve been with you in the struggle, and we don’t even care about your experience or even your interest. We just take people and put them there. Therefore, we are finding ourselves in this situation.”
With the youth aged 15-24 years and 25-34 years recording the highest unemployment rates of 66,5% and 43,5% respectively, UNGRAASA has a challenge ahead trying to bring it down. The formal sector, which employs almost ten million people (67,2% of total employment) added 143 000 jobs between the third quarter of 2021 and the fourth quarter of 2021.
Even though employment went up from 14,3 million to 14,5 million (a rise of 262 000), unemployment also increased from 7,6 million to 7,9 million (a rise of 278 000). While graduates have become discouraged, there has been a decline in discouraged workers with a drop of 56 000.
With the war in Ukraine looking far from over and with global oil prices increasing, increasing the fuel price, trade unions fear unemployment could hit the 50% mark by next quarter if the government continues the path, it’s currently on.
Innocent Khumalo from UNGRAASA spoke with Julie Alli about the dismal unemployment rate in SA:
