‘Unfortunately, I won’t resign’: Labour minister grilled on almost 10% graduate unemployment rate

The Minister of Employment and Labour Nomakhosazana Meth told Parliament she will not resign over the rising number of unemployed graduates.

Meth said she and her department are “doing all we can”, working with the private sector and other departments to combat the crisis.

This comes as the unemployment rate of university graduates has risen from 9.7% in the second quarter of 2024 to 9.8% in the third quarter.

Graduate unemployment jumps 1.3% in a year

This is an increase from 8.5% in the third quarter of 2023 – equating to a 1.3% increase in a year.

Speaking at a National Assembly Plenary on Wednesday, Alan Beesley of ActionSA asked the minister if there are specific plans to address this “escalating crisis”.

Beesley also asked if the lack of opportunities has led to the emigration of skilled graduates, and what interventions are proposed.

In response, Meth said the unemployment challenge is not an issue for any single department.

“The unemployment challenge that our country has is structural. It is deep-seated, it is systemic [and] widespread,” the ANC MP said.

She said since 2018 the country’s GDP [gross domestic product] growth has been slower than that of the labour force. This increases the unemployment rate.

While non-youth (people 35 and older) in employment grew by 2.9 million, the number of youth in employment dropped by 700 000.

Watch the plenary below:

She said there have been interventions aimed at reducing the unemployment rate among young people, including university graduates. These include internships provided by the private and public sectors.

Meth said she had been appointed to chair a ministerial committee to ensure partnerships are created between government and businesses that target youth unemployment.

“Just at the beginning of last week, we had two collaborative co-ordination meetings in one day,” she boasted, as some MPs started to interrupt her with jeers.

Meth’s fellow ANC MPs urged the opposition members to quieten down while she continued over them.

“We are zooming into the space of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, digital transformation etc,” she said.

“So yes, we think that clear career pathways in a number of initiatives that are coming up will be created.”

Furthermore, she said the department is implementing an initiative that would recruit a “sizeable number” of intern inspectors. These will develop the department’s employment initiatives.

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Minister will not resign, will stay on to help youth find jobs

In his follow-up question, Beesley said Meth had “just highlighted the lack of accountability in government”.

He asked her if she would resign if the rate of unemployment of graduates continued to increase.

To this, Meth responded, “So you want me to implement consequence management to myself?

“Unfortunately, I won’t resign, because this is a coordinated effort that is needed.”

She said if the unemployment rate did not decrease it was every MPs’ failure, not just hers. More jeers started drowning her out before the speaker called for quiet.

“I won’t sleep on the job. I’ll continue to do my job of co-ordinating and starting initiatives and schemes. [These] will create opportunities for our young people.”

When the ANC’s Boyce Maneli asked the minister about evaluating programmes that aimed to reduce graduate unemployment, Meth said she would work with other departments to analyse the effectiveness of programmes.

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