KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Provincial Government Database Registration for Unemployed Youths;- The rife unemployment of South Africa (SA) graduates has become a cause for concern for the provincial government. The unemployment of graduates has also become a thorn in the flesh of the provincial government, which if not addressed properly, can become a raging inferno with devastating effects.
Provincial Government Database Registration for Unemployed Youths
The advent of the novel coronavirus more than a year ago, has worsened the unemployment of graduates in South Africa and particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. Covid-19 has wreaked global havoc in the economy, causing untold damage to lives and livelihoods as those who were insecure employment, lost jobs in an unprecedented manner.
The KwaZulu-Natal government wants to eradicate and lessen the triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality by establishing an integrated and easy to access Provincial Unemployed Graduates Database.
To alleviate the effects of unemployment on graduates, the provincial government, through the Youth Chief Directorate and the ICT unit, has devised a template to be used to collect and collate integrated, up-to-date data on unemployed graduates in the province.
This year marks 45 years since the youth of South Africa rose up in arms against the tyrannic apartheid government which enforced Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in African schools. The youth of 1976 could not take this directive lying down, they fiercely opposed it, losing their lives in the process as the apartheid police unleashed violence on defenceless and unarmed students.
Fourty-five years later, the youth of today faces different challenges – these range from drug and alcohol abuse, gender-based violence and femicide and last but not least, the dwindling employment opportunities among the youth, which has caused despair for the future. It is for this reason that the provincial government has embarked on establishing the Provincial Unemployed Graduates Database.
The aim of the online database – which will be accessible to government departments, municipalities, government agencies and the private sector – is to help recruit youth for internships and learnerships as well as establish youth trends which can help to inform policy.
The Provincial Unemployed Graduates Database will also be accessible to national programmes such as Infrastructure Strategic Projects for Unemployed Youth that seeks job training opportunities in various sectors.
The registration on the database will be accessible on the KZN Online website and will be continuous, without a closing date.
The proposed template – which will be easily accessible on various social media platforms, including the KZN Online website (www.kznonline.gov.za) – can be populated by unemployed graduates.
Even graduates from rural and outlying areas of the province can have access to the template through the Mobile Vehicle Offices which will provide access to information through technology.
The Youth Development Chief Directorate will then collate information on the template and update the database on a regular basis.
Recent reports on the unemployment figures for youth in South Africa and KwaZulu-Natal in particular, paint a gloomy picture.
According to Stats SA, the country’s official unemployment rate has increased to a record 32.5%, as the number of jobless in South Africa grew to 7.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) released the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) recently, which showed that the increasing unemployment rate is due to more people joining the labour force, as economists expected.
More than half (52.3%) of the 7.2 million unemployed persons had education levels below matric. By comparison, only 1.8% of the unemployed were graduates and 7.5% had other tertiary qualifications.
Unemployment was mostly concentrated among youth – those aged between 15 and 24 years with a rate of 63.2% – and with those aged between 25 and 34, with a rate of 41.2%.
Stats SA also highlighted that unemployment is higher among black Africans (36.5%), compared to other population groups. Black African women are the most vulnerable, with an unemployment rate of 38.5%, according to a presentation from Stats SA.
It is against this background that KwaZulu-Natal is doing its all in its power to address the rising unemployment among youth and graduates. Hopefully this venture will go a long way in alleviating the plight of unemployed graduates, thus relieving the stressful load on their shoulders.
