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Jobs: Where the cookie crumbles and how to fix it

When it comes to job creation for the youth in South Africa, "the cookie often crumbles" between funding and implementation, says Raj Dhanlall of PwC.

He said research shows that improvements were needed on the supply and demand side when it comes to job creation for the youth. The matching process also needs to be more efficient.

Dhanlall was one of the closing speakers at the Accelerated Inclusive Youth Employment conference hosted by Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator at the Spier Wine Estate this week.

Inclusive job creation for the youth in South Africa should also include the quality of the job, said Khwezi Mabasa of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra).

"For the social compact between business, government and labour in SA to work, a shared national development vision is needed," he said.

"Each partner in the social compact must be willing to carry both the costs and the benefits. The social compact must be sustainable and fair.

"Work is about human dignity. Employment creates a particular type of citizen for SA," he added.

For Lerato Lehoko of the organisation Yellowwoods, the conference has indicated the importance of public-private investments to optimise the transition of young people into the work force.

Another issue that was raised at the closing of the conference was that people often do not understand the funding restraints within which government must work.

It is not easy to create jobs in the economic climate in SA and one of the conclusions of the conference was that one needs to "do your homework" to see what some of the key barriers in specific sectors are in terms of creating jobs.

Because of the pressure on fiscal spend, the conference concluded that there must be a shift to ensure that those tasked with implementing the process of youth job creation, are more outcomes driven in order to have a higher success rate.

According to Najwah Allie-Edries, head of National Treasury's Jobs Fund initiative, the "jockey" - the partner tasked with implementing the programme - is very important.

"One must look at how the implementer uses its agency and how it brings other people into a project or programme to create work," she said.

"It is very important to learn from others too."

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