SAF Insights: Celebrating Youth Day

SAF Insight: A Youth Day with little to celebrate or a multitude of opportunity?

Covid-19 has undoubtedly dealt a further definitive blow to the already compromised employment rate in a labouring South Africa. This worrying fact was further edified when President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday, 14 June, revealed that the youth unemployment rate in our country currently stands at a staggering 46% - stating that the biggest challenge faced by young people is the lack of opportunity for employment; painting a gloomy picture on a commemorative Youth Day.

In his weekly open letter, Ramaphosa emphasised that the only means for remedial action is to accelerate economic growth, drawing particular attention to labour-intensive sectors, with this, also acknowledging the developmental role of the state in providing means for economic participation.

For the generation thought to comprise the bringers of economic change, the future of South African youth appears understandably glum and hopeless. The barging in of the Covid-19 pandemic on our preferred comforts, ushering in with it mass salary cuts, job losses and forced retrenchments, tends to leave one in a space of despondence.

But it’s not all bad.

The pandemic brought with it catastrophic after-effects, but so too did it irrevocably alter the landscape of work of which we can partake, and at grassroots level; how we work. It is reasonable to say that technology was always there, as was e-mail and Zoom and Microsoft Teams, but only when it was necessitated, did we realise the potential to work completely contactless and still completely FUNCTIONALLY.

According to Forbes, this is the era for freelancing if ever there was one. They highlight a number of reasons that freelancing can be ideal in a Covid-19 world:

• For one, there is a decreased need for resources and outright FLEXIBILITY to work and render services when it suits you.
• It enables income diversification; where income streams are increased. Think SIDE HUSTLE.
• The idea of adapting and expanding one’s skill-set to suit a vast array of opportunity, nurturing lifelong learning.
• A teeming work portfolio since freelance work allows you to undertake numerous projects simultaneously.

A vast expanse of opportunity now lies at the feet of South African youth. One where we are no longer required to go from door-to-door to market ourselves and our services or product. With the mass migration of broader society into the online space while the dangers of Covid-19 still lurk outside, African youth are in an advantageous position – with increased digitisation across the continent.

Many of us can attest to having graduated and found ourselves jobless at once. Many of us can attest to being highly skilled at a trade but being unable to find employment. SAFCOIN’s MobiJobs platform was created to affect change to this dynamic – and is rightly looking to normalise partaking in the Gig Economy amongst Africans.

Youth Day commemorates the tenacity of Apartheid youth in heralding change to an antiquated and racially exclusive education system. Should South African youth then not look to imitate that example of tenacity in times of tribulation and seek to rise above?

MobiJobs provides the opportunity to initiate the economic involvement of a young South Africa. Whether your specialty is gardening, an artisan trade like plumbing, or more online-based such as logo design or copyediting and writing, our platform allows you to market your services, online or in-person – and get paid for them. More than that, we help you build up a business profile by allowing your clients to provide reviews on your services rendered – and the more favourable your reviews, the more bookings. Using MobiJobs gives you access to a global market of work seekers, and employers alike.

It is a fact that traditional forms of employment are becoming scarcer and scarcer, and that the need for determined self-starters is rapidly increasing. By no means should the freelance market be left untapped; especially by a talented and eager youth that are well-informed about the state of the job sector.

It is rational to think outside the box. For it is here that economic acceleration lies. In exploring opportunities outside the confines of normality. This is a thing South African youth are no strangers to; a thing MobiJobs encourages. An enquiring youth, unafraid to ruffle feathers.

So yes, perhaps it is necessary to change our mindsets to one where the glass is half full. Or perhaps it is one where we are charged to create our own opportunities for economic change.

If you are looking to join the freelance space, visit www.mobijobs.africa and start listing your skills today.

Looking to source top notch local freelancers?  Look no further than MobiJobs to hire freelance talent, safely.