The South African government has officially launched an ambitious new National Youth Service program today aimed at tackling the country’s chronic youth unemployment crisis through intensive skills training and job creation.
Speaking at the launch event in Pretoria, Deputy President Shipokosa Paulus Mashatile unveiled the South African National Service Institute (SANSI), which will implement and oversee the South African National Defence Force (SANDF)-led National Youth Service (NYS) initiative.
“This initiative is a step towards reinforcing our country’s ongoing war on youth unemployment by massifying value-chain-driven and sector-specific skills development, enterprise development, production brigades, and infant industries to power South Africa’s re-industrialization targets,” Mashatile declared.
The NYS program envisions recruiting youth volunteers into a comprehensive training pipeline starting with character-building, followed by demand-based technical skills instruction aligned to high labor absorption industries. The end goal is to transition participants into gainful employment or entrepreneurship opportunities.
Mashatile emphasized the urgency behind the program, citing Statistics South Africa’s latest labor force data showing unemployment rates of 59.7% for youth aged 15-24 and 40.7% for those 25-34 years old. A staggering 3.6 million young people between 15-24 are currently not in employment, education or training.
“Our efforts should focus on disrupting the structural after-lives of an economy that has consistently subjugated the marginalized for decades,” the Deputy President said. “The youth are our nation’s most valuable asset and it is our duty to help them realize their capabilities.”
The SANDF-led NYS adopts a “whole-of-government, whole-of-society” approach, initially targeting South Africa’s poorest districts where need is greatest. Mashatile appealed to the private sector, civil society and all South Africans to support the national skills revolution and youth empowerment drive.
He positioned the launch of SANSI and the NYS program as “a significant milestone” representing “a massive investment” in liberating South Africa’s marginalized youth from joblessness, inequality and poverty through service, skills and economic participation.
Provincial rollouts of the NYS program are expected soon, with a goal of recruiting at least 100,000 youth participants in the current fiscal year. The Deputy President urged all eligible youth to apply.
The launch comes just over a week before South Africa’s national elections on May 29, which Mashatile said will allow citizens to “decide for yourselves the direction of our country and the path that we should take to get there.”
