As an intervention, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema has called on the government to provide a monthly stipend of R1000 to unemployed graduates and matriculants while job hunting. Malema was speaking at a June 16 event held at the Durban University of Technology in Kwa-Zulu-Natal.
According to Stats SA, the number of unemployed people rose from 7.9 million in the first quarter of 2023 to 32.9%, up from 32.7% in 2022. Young people aged 15–34 who were not enrolled in school, working, or receiving training made up about 44.7% of this total.
CEO of Youth Employment Services (YES), Ravi Naidoo, says that although this may come across as an effort to garner political points by Malema, he does make a valid point.
However, he goes on to say that there needs to be clarity about how this proposed job-seeking subsidy would be rolled out, as roughly 6% of university graduates are unemployed
It wouldn’t cost a lot of money to give all of them R1000 a month, because that would amount to a hundred million rands. But once you extend it to youths with a matric or technical qualification it would cost South Africa billions of rand.
Naidoo further stated that in order for the subsidy to be sustainable, it would need to be designed in a way that directly relates to employment rather than just being a monthly income grant.
Youth Employment Services is not the first organisation to acknowledge the high costs of seeking employment for the youth. A study conducted by the Youth Capital Project last year revealed that young people spend an average of R938 a month looking for a job.
Leaning further towards the question of fiscal affordability, Naidoo concludes that there would be no return on investment for the taxpayer if the subsidy wasn’t linked to job-seeking and introduced in the form of a grant.
