WeeklySA_AdminUNAPPRECIATED: Mzansi youth pin hope on overseas job opportunities as SA’s unemployment-rate reaches unprecedented levels.
By Thuli Zungu
After the 1976 uprising, the majority of South Africa’s black youths went into exile because they had rebelled against Apartheid and its oppressive laws, but now the millennials go abroad for greener pastures because of rampant unemployment in their homeland.
“Where did we go wrong?” asks Loyiso Mbatha (36) of Westdene, who lost his job in May last year, after he had worked for three years. Mbatha says he is currently in negotiations with an Australian bank which had hired him for three years, between 2009 and 2012.
While he was working in Australia, Mbatha was able to send money home and had also helped to pay for his sister’s university fees. Mbatha says his departure is earmarked for January 2022, adding that 50 percent of his fellow SA students who were doing a similar course were preparing to leave the country for employment opportunities abroad.
He says at some point he had even considered going back to the military, but he had opted to register for his third degree. He is studying towards a post-graduate certification in further education and training, which he says is a qualification that is recognised world over, he says. Mbatha says the degree would allow him to even teach English overseas, if this were necessary. “As a youth I feel powerless and invisible, without employment,” he says. “I’m supposed to be called a man, but I have no tracking of a man, when do I become a man, instead of depending on my parents for support.”
Mbatha told Weekly SA Mirror that youth unemployment is being orchestrated, adding that South Africa, as a country that is rich in minerals, should not be teeming with unutilised and underutilised professions, and hordes of unemployed graduates. “Poverty, unskilled labour or unemployment is not what we should be worrying or writing about,” Mbatha says.
Mbatha says as a young man he feels sidelined, because at no point has he been in the driver’s seat or a position where he could determine things for his future. He feels like a passenger in his own life because his life is determined by those who are better positioned to employ those closer to them whether they have experience or not. He says he has done everything he was expected to do, but he remains unemployed.
“When do I become a man to do things for myself?” he asks, adding that depending on his mother for support is embarrassing. “For me this unemployment issue is deliberate, and it’s not by accident or chance because there are countless countries that are directing their energies towards creating employment for their citizens,” he says.
He mentioned among other countries America which spent a trillion of dollars in its stimulus package to create employment for its citizens. “China was able to create employment for its population which is bigger than South Africa, and is still employing South Africans,” he says
Mbatha says he does not want to go abroad but he has to since he can’t find jobs in his craft. “I have experience in banking which I acquired in Australia, but can’t find employment in my own country, because my career is seemingly not for a black youth,” he says.
He asked how we explain unemployment to the residents of the North West which hold the largest percentage of World’s copper mining. Mbatha told WSAM that with all the wealth the country has, our pensioners or South Africans should be getting at least R35 000 a month instead of the R350 they are getting as a grant. “In the past few months of unemployment, I have learned to identify with the unemployed and those who are driven to indulge in drugs, there is no difference. They are unemployed, I’m not and where is the future.” he asked.
