Youth and work in South Africa:

Issues, experiences and ideas from a young democracy

by  Adrienne Bird

Department of Labour, South Africa

 

 

This paper provides an overview of South Africa´s labour market and the position of young people within it. It gives a description of the education and training system and the ways it is being moulded to support economic and employment growth, and social development in South Africa. Finally it offers a reflection on policy implementation challenges that lie ahead and some of the ideas that are under discussion in relation with this matter.

South Africa faces one of the worst massive unemployment crisis in the world. In 1997, 22,9% of the 13, 785, 493 economically active South Africans were unemployed. 35% of the unemployed are below 25 years old and 72% are below 35. The level of unemployment is much worse for the African population –for example, 61% of young Africans between the ages of 16 and 25 are unemployed. Across all groups, unemployment for women in the same age cohort is 54% and for rural people, 56%.

Poor economic growth is at the heart of this problem. Economic growth has not risen much above 3% in the mid-90s and is hovering just above 0 percent at present. South Africa has experienced a massive decline in agricultural (3.9%) and mining (2.8%) sector employment and an increase in financial (6.1%) and other services (3.8%). These shifts have taken place in a context where absolute employment levels have increased by a meagre 13.8% in 25 years. Another dimension of the crisis is poor labour absorption. South African formal economy had an average annual of 44.5% labour absorption and an annual incremental of 0.4% in the 1990-95 period. This poor labour absorption is characterized by a lower demand for workers at the bottom-end of the occupational ladder and an increase in the demand for more skilled workers in the formal economy. The group that has benefited the least from these shifts in labour demand has been African workers who, because of past discrimination in education and labour market policies are concentrated in elementary occupations.

Wages have risen for those in employment in line with productivity improvements. But the ILO Country Study states that South Africa´s income inequality is one of the highest in the world. African, female-headed households represent the poorest group in the country, followed by African, male headed households. At the opposite end, white, male headed households are the most affluent.

Unlikely other developing countries, South Africa has fewer people active in the informal sector than unemployed people, largely due to apartheid policies which suppressed entrepreneurial activity of the African majority for nearly fifty years. The ILO study reported that for African men, white men and white women the rate of self-employment is approximately 10%, and for African women is 18,4%. The majority of some 2.664,554 "survivalist" and "informal" activities occur in agriculture (29%), construction (4%), trade, catering and accommodation (17%) and community and social services (34,7%). Of all informal sector activity only 23% of black people worked in production or trading activities. The informal sector is characterized by unregulated flexibility, sub-contracting, and incomes that are substantially lower than those earned in the formal sector. In the Labour Market Flexibility Survey conducted in 1995 and 1996 it was found that some 85.5% of firms reported that they had made use of temporary/casual workers and 43.5% had used contract labour.

The ILO Country Review conducted in tandem to the Presidential Labour Market Commission in 1996, found out that the most likely age group among employers was 26-35, considerably older than was typical in other countries. Many believe that the reason is linked to poor schooling and social problems linked to disrupted family life under apartheid and in the struggle to effect its overthrow. Youth between 16-25 years are 35.16% of the unemployed population and young people between 26-35 are 37.10%, decreasing when the age group is older. Unemployed youth, especially in communities where unemployment is high, have few positive role models. An increasing number live in homes where their parent/s or guardians have never worked. Self-employment is not generally perceived to be a viable alternative, and there are still too few succesful entrepreneurial role models in African communities. Apartheid prevented acces of African entrepreneurs to the market and small business people who were successful became identified as "collaborators with apartheid". In this context, sexual and substance abuse are widespread and the incidence of crime constitutes a national crisis. The HIV/AIDS virus has reached epidemic proportions. The national infection rate, as measured by the number of women testing positive in anti-natal clinics has risen from 10,4% in 1995, to 22,8% in 1998. Within this figure, the highest infection rate has been measured among those between 15 and 24 years old where the rate is about 1 in 4.

Educational level contributes to employment and income inequality. A statistic made in 1998 showed that unemployment was highest (25%) for those with an intermediate amount of education, and lower for those with none (19%) or with 12 years schooling or more (18%). The level falls dramatically at higher levels of education. The probability of an African with 14 years education being unemployed is around 1% as compared to about 30% for those with 10 years education. At the same time, the wage differentials accruing per year of eduaction for those with 14 years of education compared with those with no education are 17.1, 15.7 and 18.8 percent for Africans, Whites and other groups respectively –high returns by international standards.

The denial to have a good quality general education that black South Africans had to endure during the apartheid period was one of the first areas of intervention of the new democratic government. One measure of the change was to change the age profile of school leavers. In 1995 the figure of those under 18 years that were leaving school had risen to 43% and consequentially those over 19 years old were 56%. But the poor prospects of finding work after school also contributes –young people remain at school in an attempt to attain the tertiary level entry qualification as a hedge against unemployment. There has been an 80% decline in the number of apprenticeships from the mid-70s, with an absolute level of about 5000 new contracts signed in 1995. There is an intermediate college sector which provides occupationally oriented courses to students, but these students are often less likely to be employed than people with work experience.

The social partners that got together in the country´s first Job Summit in October 1998 agreed to the introduction of a Youth Brigade Scheme that is to give special access to young people to the job creation schemes of government, and to incorporate "life" as well as "vocational" skills. Young people also sought special access to new jobs created in the construction of new infrastructure in integrated provincial projects. The employers announced a new Business Trust to be funded by a voluntary turn-over contribution by their members. The Trust is to focus on the promotion of the South African tourism industry and includes a major education (primary education literacy and numeracy upgrading) and training component. Besides, the trade unions announced a new job creation fund to be resourced by a voluntary contribution of one day´s pay by all their membership. However, the great challenge is to find agreement on underlying macro-economic, industry and labour market policies. Particularly urgent for young people will be agreement on issues such as youth wages, probation periods and organised work experience within the collective bargaining realm.

The initiatives made by the new South African government to solve the effects of education on future labour opportunities are a number of important interventions in the education and training arena.

*To address the problem of the quality of learning opportunities across the country, the Ministers of Education and Labour joined in 1995, forced to introduce a National Qualification Framework (NQF). The Act that was produced provides for an outcomes-based system where there is an explicit focus on what has been learnt, as measured against socially agreed standards. The NQF provides for the registration of different levels of education and is made up of eight agreed national levels and a range of learning progression routes. Agreement on standards to be registered is recommended by twelve National Standards Bodies made up of employers, trade unionists, government officials, professional bodies and education and training providers. Once standards and qualifications are registered, the quality assurance of the standards is ensured by a second set of established and new institutions. They register assessors and keep a record of learner achievements. They also formally accredit providers as competent to train. Quality assurance bodies will be established in the different educative sectors. The model was proposed to enable both young and older learners to have their current learning recognised through a process of Recognition of Prior Learning, and then have the opportunity to progress further in learning, be it in full-time or part-time contexts.

*Among the wide range of initiatives taken by the government to improve access to schooling and the quality of that schooling it must be noted that a Schools Act has been passed by the Minister of Education, which aims to effect a holistic transformation of schools. It introduced more autonomous school governing councils, a culture of learning and teaching, improvements in the quality of all educational inputs including curriculum, teacher upgrading and improved teacher-pupil ratios in the country. The most radical transformation effected by the government is the elimination of all racial restrictions on access. Schooling is now compulsory for all children for ten years, including a preparatory year.

*The Ministers of Education and Labour have launched complementary initiatives to improve the range of learning opportunities available to learners in the post-compulsory learning phase and to enhance the responsiveness of the learning to the labour market. The Minister of Education has passed the Further Education and Training Act as well as the Higher Education Act. Both Acts envisage that learning institutions should prepare three-year rolling plans, composed of a new focus on learning programmes. State funds will increasingly be weighted towards those programmes which are perceived as vital to underpin reconstruction and development of the society –mathematics, science and technology and the like. Both Acts introduce advisory bodies to the Minister of Education regarding policy and allocation of resources.

The Minister of Labour has introduced two pieces of legislation: the Skills Development Act and the Skills Development Levies Act. These seek to improve the quantity and quality of learning for those already in work (be it self-employment or formal sector activity) and those seeking to enter the labour market. The Skills Development Act establishes the National Skills Authority –NSQ- that will advise the Minister on a national skills development strategy and means for its implementation. A central vehicle for implementation will be thirty-odd Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) –employer- trade union- government bodies- to be established across the economy, e.g Transport, Tourism, Banking, Construction and the like. SETAs will be required to prepare Skills Plans on an annual basis –and these plans will have to identify skill targets and priorities for productivity and employment growth, providing by this an opportunity to diffuse the work of research agencies into industry. SETAs will also be responsible for the development and implementation of learnerships to promote "apprenticeship-like" qualifications, but at any level of the National Qualification Framework and in any field of occupational learning and serving both large, small and emerging firms. It is intended that they will identify areas of employment opportunity or constraint –in the formal or informal segments of industry- and then design learnerships to meet the need. Already 217 learners have completed the first four pilot learnerships in construction and tourism. Responsive institutions will provide the structured learning and SETAs will assist in finding placements for learners. This program will need to link with initiatives launched by the National Youth Commission.

The Skills Development Levies Act acts to put in place "user-charge" type incentives and thereby to complement the Skills Development Act. It introduces a 1% private-sector payroll levy that all firms will pay, but at the same time they will be able to claim grants for training done from their SETA. The public sector is also included in all of these initiatives, however they will not pay a levy, instead they will have to budget 1% of personnel costs. The South African formal apprenticeship system has failed to rise to the challenge of providing a bridge for young people to enter the labour market. The newly proposed "learnership" system is an attempt to remedy this problem. It provides for structured learning and work experience and culminates in an occupational qualification. Recent experience suggests that this framework is promising, but extensive support is still needed to bridge from the learnership to placement and self-employment. We are hopeful that our levy-grant scheme will help to provide the financial incentives firms require and encourage them to both provide opportunities for work experience and then facilitate post training placement. We have found that there is, at present, a problem on the side of training providers, and look forward to the programmes of the Department of Education kicking in to enhance the capacity of providers to support learnerships in a more flexible way.

Another initiative of various government departments has been to launch job creation schemes. For young people the key concern has been securing access to these schemes and ensuring that some learning takes place within these programmes –including life skills. The Department of Labour´s Employment Services local offices are increasingly positioning themselves to act as a selection and referral agency for these schemes. In general, programmes such as Youth Brigades or Youth Service schemes are more geared towards re-integrating young people back into productive society, and are less focused on the delivery of hard skills. By contrast, learnerships are strongly focused on occupational skills and aim to gain a reputation for high quality training.

A young person will have a number of increasingly clear options when contemplating entry into the labour market once our policies are fully implemented:

1. Improved information and guidance about the labour market when making career choices –both from the learning institution as well as the employment services local office. SETAs will play an important part in preparing up to date information on trends.
2. Placement in a formal sector job, if one is available and the young person is qualified.
3. Return to full-time learning with a view to acquiring occupational skills that appear to be needed.
4. Entry to a learnership –with structured learning and work experience in an occupational area- with work experience facilitated by a SETA or college.
5. Placement on a job creation scheme if the young person needs to be "oriented to the labour market". Youth brigades and Youth Service Schemes are envisaged.
6. Preparation to commence their own business –either alone or in partnership with others with support available from various agencies.
7. Work experience, linked to probation periods and life skills could fill the gap between youth brigades and learnerships.
8. Young people already in work, either in the formal sector or in self-employment should be able to access upgrading opportunities. Employment equity legislation should assist those who have previously suffered from discrimination.
9. Support for those with substance abuse problems, victims from sexual abuse or violence and psychological problems will require special support.

 

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