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Johannesburg - More jobs need to be created to ensure that the total number of South Africans employed is significantly increased, deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe said on Thursday.
"The benefits will reach many more people through sustainable, decent work opportunities and in this we will avoid youth employment schemes that simply displace older workers."
Motlanthe was speaking at the launch of the accord on youth employment at the Hector Peterson Square in Soweto.
"I want to stress the urgency with which we need to carry out this task. We have agreed that a comprehensive strategy is necessary to achieve this.
"Such a strategy will require that the structural challenges in the economy are addressed, including poor skills, weak infrastructure, monopolies and cartels and lack of partnerships at workplace level."
The youth employment accord has six commitments.
The first is on education and training. It commits in particular to improve education and training opportunities for the gap grouping between school-leaving and first employment.
The second commitment is on work exposure, to connect young people with employment opportunities, through support for job placement schemes and work-readiness promotion programmes for young school leavers.
The third commitment is to strengthen measures that increase the number of young people employed in the public sector, through co-ordinating and scaling up existing programmes.
This include clear targets for new jobs in areas such as infrastructure, the business process services sector and the green economy, particularly the manufacture, installation and maintenance of solar water heaters.
The fifth commitment is to grow youth entrepreneurship and youth co-operatives.
"Public agencies such as Small Enterprise Finance Agency, Small Enterprise Development Agency and the Jobs Fund will be encouraged to develop and strengthen dedicated programmes of support for youth enterprises and youth co-operations," said Motlanthe.
The sixth commitment is to develop private sector measures to expand the intake of young people, with targeted youth support and incentives approved by all constituencies.
It is important to improve private-sector youth absorption given that most sustainable new jobs are expected to be created in the private sector, Motlanthe said.
He added that business organisations have endorsed the youth employment strategy as a practical and concrete way in which partnerships could be developed.
"We wish to complete all the preparatory work so that programmes can be announced between today and June this year, which is National Youth Month."
He said the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has agreed to set aside R1bn to make low-interest rate loans available to youth-owned or youth-focused enterprises over the next three years.
The IDC would also provide technical support to young people to assist in accessing these funds and will refer them to other support available in the state.
