Future not so bright for black, coloured youths in SA

18 April 2016

Parliament – More coloured and black youth in South Africa are unemployed, involved in crime, and uneducated, than other race groups, Statistician General Dr Pali Lehohla said on Monday.

“For Indians and whites, the future is very clear. For coloured and black youth, it’s not. It takes twice the effort for a black or coloured child qualified from the same university to be employed,” Lehohla said.

He was speaking at the release of a report highlighting some of the difficulties the country’s youth faced.

Lehohla said two-thirds of those unemployed in South Africa in 2014 were young people.

White, Indian, or Asian youths were more likely to complete Grade 12 than their black and coloured counterparts. Black and coloured youths were also less likely to finish university. And unemployment was strongly linked to education.

"The number of blacks and coloured youths that go to university has increased, dramatically so. The problem is that they don’t complete, like their counterparts who are white. They are confronted by a number of challenges," he said.

This meant the proportion of white people getting skilled employment was higher in all age categories.

According to the report, in 2014, about 2 million employed people in the country were classified as entrepreneurs. A total of 543 000 of them were from the youth sector.

The number of young female entrepreneurs declined by 6.2 percentage points, and the number of males entrepreneurs by less than 1 percentage point between 2009 and 2014.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.