Cape Town employer perspectives on government initiatives addressing graduate youth unemployment

Abstract

As unemployment grows significantly, the need for government to promote collaboration with employers in business and the private sector has been identified as a way to alleviate this crisis. In the South African government, 60% of the initiatives are government and business/private sector collaboration, and 53% provide short-term and temporal employment through skills training and learnerships. Therefore, the government needs to examine its current policies and initiatives and determine how they can attract the participation of employers in the creation of long-term employment, especially employers considering collaborating with the government in addressing the graduate youth unemployment crisis in South Africa. Literature indicates the detrimental effects of the high unemployment rate among the youth as it results in inequality and a rise in poverty and crime. As such, the government needs to reduce unemployment by offering incentives such as grants, tax exemptions, and investment boosts to employers who appoint and employ youth, as well as giving support to employment agencies or using creative techniques to enable unemployed youth to secure employment. This study, therefore, aims to explore employers’ perspectives about collaborating with the government in addressing youth unemployment in South Africa. Only 20% of government initiatives provide a platform to discuss job creation, whereas business/private sector and government partnerships are crucial. So exploring employer perspectives will create platforms whereby government goals are communicated, understood and executed on behalf of the state.