Journal De Bruxelles - From determination to despair: S.Africa's youth battling for work

A queue of men and boys wait their turn for a 60-rand ($3.50) trim from this self-taught barber, who defied South Africa's massive unemployment rate -- one of the highest in the world -- to create his own job.

Moshoke turned his schoolboy hobby of hairstyling into a career when he became among the 32 percent who are today out of work in South Africa, a rate that rises to 45 percent for the 15 to 34 age group.

He lost his last job, as a petrol attendant, during the pandemic several years ago. "Covid-19 sparked the realisation that I could turn this whole thing into a career, and I've been moving forward ever since," said Moshoke.

Now he works six days a week, from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, making around 5,000 rand ($274) a month, an amount on par with the official minimum wage.

"This is not an easy job," he said, his reddened eyes revealing deep fatigue. But, "we have hands and at the end of the day, you have to sleep with a full tummy."

In his small patch of the yard of his boyhood home in Johannesburg's sprawling township of Daveyton, Moshoke also provides space for other young entrepreneurs, such as 25-year-old Thuso Sebiloane, who set himself up as a nail technician when he could not find work.

"We also want to grow as black people since opportunities were never on our side in this country," Sebiloane, who styles and shapes customers' nails, told AFP.

Three decades after the end of apartheid, black South Africans still suffer the most from the legacy of the previous race-based system.

- Despair -

Perhaps tempted by South Africa's strong crime culture or resigned to being excluded from opportunity, many youngsters in the impoverished townships do not even try to find formal work, Sebiloane said.

"You find kids now are not interested in playing sport but more interested having guns; they are not interested in reading books or growing themselves, but more interested in killing the next person," he said.

Not far from the backyard barbershop, Nhlanhla Vilakazi, 31, washes shoes for around 90 rand a pair to earn her living.

Despite government pronouncements that youth joblessness is one of the most critical issues facing the most industrialised country on the continent, young people are cynical.

"They only come here during election periods to campaign and bribe us with t-shirts to vote for them," said 28-year-old Ndumiso Mthembu, who has not been able to find a job since leaving high school eight years ago.

"If I was weak, I would have already given my life to drugs, just like how most of my peers did," said Mthembu, who spends his days sitting on the patio of his parents' small Daveyton home.

"The direct effect of persistent youth unemployment is persistently high levels of crime, despondency," said Bonga Makhanya, founder of the South African Youth Economic Council advocacy group.

"Unemployment in South Africa is structural… the inadequacies of basic education and structural systems, coupled with insufficient resources, are key factors exacerbating the crisis," he said.

Thandanani Zwane has given up trying to find work and now tosses dice on the pavement to make a bit of money.

"Out of necessity, I come here to gamble every day to ensure I have enough to eat and don't go to bed hungry," the 21-year-old told AFP.

Despite the odds, downtrodden Pedros Thomonyana, 33, is still trying. He camps outside a hardware store in an affluent area of Johannesburg advertising his skills as a builder, plasterer and housepainter in large writing on a placard.

"It is not fair because I went to school, got a qualification and now I have to stand here everyday like a beggar, hoping that someone will come here to offer me something so I can support my children," he said.

E.Janssens--JdB