Youth Unemployment

Introduction
In the modern society of today unemployment is a very serious and complex matter to take into consideration. Investopedia online dictionary (2013) defines unemployment as follow: Unemployment occurs when a person who is actively searching for employment is unable to find work. Unemployment is often used as a measure of the health of the economy. The most frequently cited measure of unemployment is the unemployment rate. This is the number of unemployed persons divided by the number of people in the labor force. Derived from the definition above, the topic of discussion is youth unemployment, why are there no jobs for the youth of today? Various reasons can be the cause of this problem, the lack of skills and knowledge of the youth, foreign competition, technology development, increase in business input and production costs just to name a few. The youth unemployment rate in South Arica is 24.9%, roughly displaying that a third of the countries youth are without jobs. This crisis is influencing and leading to more poverty and economic instability as well as a decrease in economic growth. The government must attempt to lower this ratio by means of policies, interventions, subsidies or incentives. Further discussion will be held of what is causing youth unemployment and what the government can do to increase the level of employment.
Lack of skills, knowledge and education.
The youth labour force seeking employment often lack the skills and knowledge needed for the position they wish to enter, the reason for this is typically underdevelopment in education and training caused by poor educational systems and programs. The necessary information and skills needed are not clearly provided to the youth, but not only must the correct knowledge be provided but also adequate levels of experience in the work environment. The Government can reduce this problem by implementing skill development programs as well as SETA’s into the workforce and human resource departments in organisations to help unskilled labour develop their knowledge and achieve the skills necessary to increase their levels of productivity and enhance an acceptable overall work rate in the work environment. However this expenditure from the government for these programs needs to be financed in some manner and thus the possibility of an increase in taxes will provide for this, causing a decrease in individual consumption as well as a decline in investment spending.
Discrimination causing unemployment
This occurs when employees in the workforce are being discriminated against in terms of their race, gender, education, health and appearance. This issue leads to the unemployment of skilled labour with high qualification standards in order to employ less skilled and disadvantaged employees