South Africa faces a youth employment polycrisis. Historical high levels of youth unemployment are being compounded by high-quality, low-cost imports and the first waves of an AI tsunami. The country needs to generate an economic return for the R500bn a year that taxpayers invest in education and skills development — and do so fast. Stats SA data for March shows that more than 4.7-million young people aged 15-34 were looking for work and finding none. The proximate cause is lack of economic growth. The economy needs consistent annual growth of above 3% to generate net jobs, rather than the paltry annual average of 1.1% achieved from 2009 to 2026. Once population growth of 1.3% is factored in, GDP per capita has actually been declining for almost two decades. Alongside the lack of economic growth, youth unemployment has risen from 35% in 2009 to 45% in 2026. If we include the youth who have given up looking for jobs, the rate is even higher, at 54%. Two further threats loom large. New technologies, such as in the vehicle sector, mean a flood of imports threaten local jobs. South Africa’s most important manufacturing employers face structural disruption as Chinese vehicle brands capture market share at speed, with implications for every plant, supplier and logistics operator in the value chain. Moreover, we are only at the start of the AI revolution, which will affect 90% of companies and multiple entry-level roles across auditing, financial services, logistics and administration. It is easy to look at this situation and despair. Instead, we need a national response to what is, in effect, a national jobs emergency.Reorientation The first priority is to reorient education and training around employment outcomes rather than certification. The country needs a better return on investment for the huge public investment in education and training. Basic education must lead to matriculants graduating with some foundational employability skills, including the ability to start a business. Currently 90% of scholars complete matric with insufficient competence in mathematics, stunting their career options and starving the economy of technical skills. Postschool education is in an equally dismal state. Fewer than 20% of students in technical and vocational colleges are studying trades that the economy needs. If even R25bn — just 5% of the R500bn annual budget — were redirected to a jobs guarantee scheme, 600,000 apprenticeships could be co-funded annually. Those apprentices are desperately needed in the economy. Network infrastructure — fibre networks, transmission grids, railways, ports and green energy installations — is precisely the domain where technical skills and significant labour are needed and where public investment directly creates employment. Targeted sector development in tourism, digital services and green industries can add further opportunities. None of these alone will fully close the gap, but together, with the right incentives, they can generate employment at a scale that goodwill cannot.The second priority is to make it substantially easier for companies to hire young people. Labour regulation that applies uniformly to all workers may be appropriate for those with established livelihoods to protect. For a first-time worker under 25 the same framework is a deterrent — it discourages employers from taking a chance on someone without a track record.Unblock constraints The third priority is to scale what is already working. Think of the national jobs response as a computer: it needs many components — public employment programmes, infrastructure investment, education reform and regulatory change. The Youth Employment Service (YES) is designed to be the “first job” workplace experience programme component in that machine — the part that takes young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and places them inside real companies for a year of genuine work. With more than 2,030 sponsoring companies and 225,000 youth alumni, it has become the world’s biggest private sector-funded youth jobs programme. The know-how and intellectual property that young people gain through their workplace experiences is exactly what they need to build our future economy and tax base. But the programme is being artificially constrained. Currently, 40% of South African companies are blocked from participating in the YES incentive because the broad-based BEE (BBBEE) codes require them to satisfy other elements — equity ownership and skills expenditure — before they are permitted to sponsor YES youth jobs. How is this even remotely acceptable in a country that routinely describes youth employment as its biggest challenge? The most effective way to tackle a polycrisis is to mobilise an entire system change. If youth employment is indeed our top priority — as President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly stated — every relevant law, regulation and administrative measure must be reviewed and aligned to that goal. Youth employment cannot be the last box companies are permitted to tick. It must be the first.• Naidoo is CEO of the Youth Employment Service.