Jobs crisis threatens South Africa’s future

This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.

I am deeply concerned about my brothers and sisters in South Africa. Every night, before I go to rest, I pray for you, Don Carlos sang during the apartheid era.

Indeed, Africa should be concerned today.

South Africa has a jobs crisis so severe that it shapes politics, communities and hope itself. Officially, about one in three people who want work cannot find it. For young people, the picture is even bleaker. Millions are waiting for a first opportunity, wondering whether the promise of 1994 ever reached their doorstep.

Into that vacuum has crept anger. In recent years, frustration has spilled onto the streets in xenophobic attacks. Migrant-owned shops have been looted, foreign workers threatened, and the familiar refrain repeated: “They are taking our jobs.” It is a painful irony. The same continent that stood with South Africans during apartheid is now being told there is no room at the table.

But expelling a neighbour is not a jobs policy. It is what happens when an economy stops creating opportunities and people begin searching for easy villains instead of difficult solutions.

How did Africa’s most industrialised economy reach this point? The answer begins with history. Under apartheid, Black South Africans were denied opportunities and treated as cheap labour. Trade unions became champions of dignity and, together with the ANC, helped win democracy.

When freedom arrived, the new government rightly sought to ensure that exploitation would never return.

Those intentions were both necessary and just. Yet good intentions alone cannot build a thriving economy.

South Africa introduced strong worker protections, collective bargaining structures and higher labour standards. These reforms gave millions of workers greater security after decades of abuse. But they also increased the cost and complexity of hiring, particularly for small businesses and inexperienced workers. By themselves, these laws did not create mass unemployment. Combined with weak economic growth, however, they made it harder for firms to take a chance on first-time employees.

Foundations of growth

That mattered because the economy stopped growing fast enough. After the global financial crisis of 2008, South Africa struggled to regain momentum. Then came years of rolling electricity blackouts. Manufacturers cannot meet export orders without reliable power. Farmers cannot process produce if factories stand idle. Ports became congested, rail freight deteriorated, and corruption hollowed out state-owned enterprises that should have powered economic growth. Electricity, transport and logistics are not side issues. They are the plumbing of a modern economy. When they fail, businesses invest less, productivity falls and job creation slows.

Education added another obstacle. Too many young South Africans leave school without the literacy, numeracy or technical skills employers need. The result is a cruel paradox: millions of unemployed young people alongside employers struggling to fill skilled positions.

Covid-19 deepened every one of these problems, wiping out jobs and exposing weaknesses that had been building for years. It also intensified the search for someone to blame. Yet no Zimbabwean builder or Nigerian barber caused Eskom’s power failures, broken railways or years of corruption.

The lesson is straightforward. Jobs are created when businesses are confident enough to invest, expand and hire. That requires reliable infrastructure, skilled workers, access to finance and rules that protect employees without making employment prohibitively risky. Protecting workers and creating jobs are not opposing goals; successful economies must do both.

What should South Africa do now?

First, restore the foundations of growth. Reliable electricity, efficient ports and functioning railways would do more for employment than almost any short-term political slogan.

Second, make it easier to hire first-time workers. That does not mean stripping away basic protections. It means simplifying compliance for small firms, expanding apprenticeships, creating flexible entry-level contracts and resolving labour disputes more quickly.

Third, invest much more aggressively in technical education. Modern manufacturing, renewable energy, construction and digital services all require practical skills that can be taught through well-funded technical and vocational colleges.

Lessons for Kenya

Fourth, support small businesses. Across Africa, most new jobs come from small and medium-sized enterprises, yet many entrepreneurs face crime, excessive bureaucracy and limited access to finance. A street vendor, mechanic or software developer should spend more time serving customers than filling out forms.

There are lessons here for Kenya as well.

First, never assume that good intentions automatically produce good economic outcomes. Policies should be judged not only by their aims but also by their results.

Second, jobs follow growth, and growth depends on reliable infrastructure, affordable energy and policy certainty. Roads, broadband, irrigation and electricity are not luxuries; they are employment policies.

Third, resist the politics of blaming outsiders. When opportunities shrink, migrants often become convenient scapegoats. But sustainable prosperity comes from expanding the economy, not excluding people from it.

South Africa’s democratic transition remains one of the great achievements of modern Africa. Yet political freedom was only the first chapter. Economic inclusion is the unfinished task.

The Bible reminds us that “hope deferred makes the heart sick.” Millions of young South Africans know that feeling all too well. Restoring hope will require more than speeches or slogans. It will demand faster growth, better schools, reliable infrastructure, thriving businesses and labour policies that protect workers while encouraging employers to hire.

The goal has never changed: a society where dignity comes not only from the right to vote but also from the opportunity to work.

Reporting originally appeared via Nation Africa. Read the full source for additional context.