In late February, Stats SA released its Quarterly Labour Force Survey which reported the highest official unemployment rate since the survey began in 2008, at 32%. “What is more problematic [than 32% unemployment] is that youth unemployment is double that: 15- to-24-year-olds at 63%, and 25-to-34-year-olds at 41%,” Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator CEO, Maryana Iskander, told Fin24 this week.

“It is really commendable that the government has been able to make more resources available […] but spending more money is not going to solve the problem; what is necessary is to figure out what is effective and scaling up what works and taking a long and serious look at the interventions that aren’t working,” she said.