As South Africa prepares to commemorate Youth Day on 16 June and the brave students of Soweto who took to the streets in 1976, the irony of our current reality is impossible to ignore. While we honour the courage and sacrifice of the youth who demanded better education and opportunities, today's youth face a crisis that would have been unimaginable to their predecessors: a staggering unemployment rate that has reached catastrophic proportions.
Anton Visser - Group COO SA Business School & Alefbet Learning 4 LR
The latest statistics paint a grim picture that should give every South African pause. Youth unemployment has surged to 62.4% in the first quarter of 2025, meaning nearly two-thirds of young South Africans aged 15-24 cannot find work. For the slightly older cohort of 25–34-year-olds, the unemployment rate sits at 41.7%. These are not mere numbers on a government spreadsheet or a statistician’s report – they represent millions of young South African lives trapped in a cycle of despair, dependency, and unfulfilled potential.
For many, Youth Month feels less like a celebration and more like a painful reminder of promises unkept and dreams deferred. The very people we honour this month — our youth — have become the most marginalised segment of our society, facing barriers to employment that grow higher with each passing year.
The great skills disconnect
At the heart of this crisis lies a fundamental mismatch between what our education system produces and what our economy demands.
Universities and technical colleges continue to churn out graduates armed with theoretical knowledge that often bears little resemblance to the practical skills employers desperately need. Businesses struggle to find workers with the right competencies, even as millions of young people remain unemployed.
This disconnect is beyond tragic. It’s catastrophic.
We have created a system where a young person can spend years studying, accumulating debt, and raising expectations, only to discover that their qualification is irrelevant in the job market. The result is a generation of qualified, willing and able, but underemployed youth, whose potential remains locked away by a system that has failed to evolve with economic realities.
The solution: Learnerships
Corporate South Africa possesses something traditional education lacks: direct insight into market needs, immediate access to real workplace environments, and the ability to provide training that directly leads to employment opportunities through learnerships.
Learnerships represent a powerful antidote to the skills mismatch plaguing our economy. These programmes combine theoretical learning with practical workplace experience, creating a bridge between education and employment. They are designed with the end in mind – employment, rather than merely the accumulation of academic credentials.
The beauty of industry-led skills development lies in its relevance and immediacy. When a mining company sponsors a learnership programme, participants learn skills that mining companies need. When a financial services firm invests in skills programmes, the training directly translates to greater employability and career advancement in that sector.
Businesses can make a fundamental difference by investing in learnerships to provide young people with the practical skills and theoretical knowledge needed in the industry, while radically changing the youth unemployment trajectory.
What is a learnership?
- A structured, work-based learning programme, typically over 12-24 months. The learner undergoes theoretical and on-the-job training, learning practical skills directly related to a specific occupation – from engineering, to insurance, to business process outsourcing, to sales, retail, manufacturing, IT Support, and many more.
- It leads to a registered qualification on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and is managed by the relevant Seta.
Learnerships make excellent business sense for the employer and learner:
- Learnerships are developed by the industry - so the skills sets and outcomes are aligned to the requirements of the specific occupation and industry sector.
- Customise the learnership to meet business objectives - With the right L&D partner, every learnership can be customised to the business strategy, as long as it meets the requirements of notional hours and formative and summative assessments.
- Qualifications are registered on the NQF - which means that employees are learning new skills and knowledge within a recognised qualification, which means improved standards, productivity and quality of work.
- Tax Rebates and Employment Equity - Learnerships earn points on the BEE Scorecard under both employment equity and skills development and there is a Sars Tax Rebate if the learnership is registered with the Department of Labour and the agreement is registered with the Seta. The Tax Rebate is calculated per learner – a learnership for a disabled learner could translate into a R120k tax rebate for a 12-month learnership. There is an opportunity to make skills levy contributions work for the benefit of the company, its people, and the communities in which it operates.
- Job prospects are imminently better for the learner, with sound theoretical and practical occupation-specific training backed by a nationally recognised qualification. Learnerships often result in permanent employment for the learner upon completion if they have performed well.
Beyond corporate social responsibility
Companies that invest seriously in youth skills training are not just helping young people – they are building their future workforce, reducing recruitment costs, and addressing skills shortages that constrain their growth. They are also investing in the stability and prosperity of the communities in which they operate. High youth unemployment is a recipe for social unrest, crime, and economic stagnation – problems that ultimately affect business performance.
Different industries also face different skills challenges, and learnership programmes can be tailored to address these specific needs. With the right L&D partner, every learnership can be customised to the business strategy, as long as it meets the requirements of notional hours and formative and summative assessments.
The manufacturing sector, for instance, can focus on technical skills, quality control, and safety procedures. The services sector can emphasise customer relations, digital literacy, and communication skills. The financial services industry can prioritise numeracy, compliance understanding, and technology proficiency.
This sector-specific approach of learnerships is something that general education cannot provide. When a young person completes a learnership in logistics, they understand not just theoretical supply chain management but the practical realities of warehouse operations, inventory systems, and customer service standards specific to that industry. When a young person completes a wholesale and retail operations learnership, they understand operational processes like stock control, sales, marketing, merchandising, small business operations, and staff supervision.
Making it work: Key success factors
For learnerships to succeed in addressing youth unemployment, several critical elements must be in place. First, these programmes must offer genuine employment prospects, not just training for its own sake. Young people have been disappointed too many times by programmes that promise much but deliver little in terms of actual job opportunities and absorption.
Second, the training must be comprehensive, addressing not just technical skills but also workplace readiness, communication abilities, and professional behaviour. Many young South Africans have never been in a formal work environment and need guidance on everything from punctuality to basic business etiquette.
Third, programmes must include mentorship and ongoing support. The transition from unemployment to employment is challenging, and young people need guidance and encouragement to navigate this change successfully.
Finally, these programmes must be scaled up significantly. We need thousands of companies, not just dozens, to commit to substantial investment into learnership programmes – whether for unemployed youth or their own currently employed young people – to either secure their first footing into the formal job market, or to advance their careers through professional growth and promotion.
A national imperative
As we mark Youth Day 2025, let it be the year when skills development, as defined in the B-BBEE scorecard, moves from the margins of tick boxes to be treated as a strategy and competitive advantage.
Youth Day 2025 should mark the beginning of a new chapter in our national story, one where corporate investment into practical skills development becomes the pathway from unemployment to opportunity, from despair to dignity, from wasted potential to productive contribution. Only then will we truly honour the sacrifice of those brave students who fought for a better tomorrow – by finally delivering it.
