BEING in your twenties is supposedly the best time of life. You are young; you are finding yourself, you are ok with that crappy starter job because everyone starts somewhere and the possibilities are endless. Maybe back in the day when we all had a fair chance and transition from one part of life to the next was clear. This one is for young people like me, coming up in our struggling African continent where 60% of the jobless are the youth, according to the World Bank.
Let’s start with the ever-moving line of succession into adulthood; by one’s early twenties some sort of personal income should be visible. Yet I am ashamed, ashamed of my inability to do so because the kind of jobs designed to be a starting point for the youth are becoming standard employment for family men and women. As young adults, we are still children in our parents’ homes because we have nowhere to go, and sadly our parents know that. More often than not, we are convinced to work hard in school to secure a future, only to be cast aside. This underutilisation of the world’s largest youth demographic sees 200 million individuals between the ages of 15-24 wasting away.
The jobs we go to school for are usually none existent due to our social and political disarray. This leaves us with an up-side-down set up where graduates are unemployed and left privy to the world of crime which most turn to survive.
As I was studying for my honours degree I was constantly looking for employment, networking, and a significant number of times illegal employment was offered to me. What is even sadder is how caviller these conversations come about;
“can you entertain businessmen? Would you be able to carry packages no questions asked?”
Most youths are presented with the hard predicament of deciding if one should let go of principles and give in to the so-called easy money that holds forever consequences. When communicating with my peers overseas, I find myself feeling like I am wasting my life, asking myself what I have been doing wrong. Simple rites of passage like one’s first crappy car have become an enigma that is unattainable as the African youth keeps being overlooked.
Employment in fast food joints meant for the youth is being given to the elderly man or women on the basis that they have dependents. Come to formal employment the youth stands no chance in hell from the sheer lack of jobs available to, corruption and nepotism.
What is a child of the motherland to do?
According to the African Development Bank: “in most African countries, youth unemployment occurs at a rate more than twice that for adults”.
So at the end of the day, existence for the African youth becomes a cruel joke. Education is presented as this ticket out of poverty but still even with that degree where does one work? More painful is the notion that the youth is lazy and entitled, essentially rendering our problem non-existent. No one is refuting the fact that the world has entitled individuals, but this trending belief that millennials are entitled is disadvantaging the millennials who aren’t and are actually hard-working but lack opportunity.
There is also the issue of under-employment; we find university graduates forced into menial jobs like washing cars and vending by poverty. The International Labour Organization (ILO) notes that under-employment is not a solution to poverty.
Zambia’s former finance minister, Alexander Chikwanda stated in an interview that:
“Youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb,” that now appears to be perilously close to exploding.
The analogy attracts attention to the consequences of high youth unemployment in a continent with the largest youth population. The African Development Bank (AfDB) warned in 2016 that the lack of employment opportunities can undermine social cohesion and political stability as showcased by events in North Africa (the Arab Spring).
But despite all this negativity, there is hope; a small glimmer of light in this long pitch-black tunnel in the form of organisations like Youth Bridge Trust (YBT). YBT’s mission is “to empower youth in Africa to fulfil their full potential in the future of work, shifting Africa to a prosperous future.”
According to the chief economist at the AfDB and Zimbabwe Finance Minister, Mthuli Ncube;
“This is an unacceptable reality on a continent with such an impressive pool of youth, talent, and creativity.”
Organisations like YBT and individuals like Ncube give the youth faith that hard work will be recognised and our plight is being heard. While it would be easy to give in and turn to crime or worse; people recognising the issue of youth unemployment is a step in a direction which at this point the youth are dying for.
