In Dischem in Sandton, a young lady, serving me at the till, asked if I had a Dischem card. I said no, so she offered one. The process took nearly 10 minutes as a form had to be completed and sent over to a manager somewhere for approval.
Meanwhile, I asked her how long she has been a till operator. “This is my second year,” she responded.
“Do you enjoy it,” I asked.
“That’s what’s available,” she said.
“What would you rather be doing?” I probed further.
“I have a diploma in chemical engineering. But there are no jobs.” She explained.
A till operator trained in chemical engineering!
It sounds like an everyday story, because it is. This is widespread.
But here is the bad news, it will be worse. More and more young people are churning out of institutions of higher learning, but there are no jobs waiting for them.
The rate of formal unemployment is not going to get better. It will get worse. On one hand, the tertiary institutions are not fit for purpose. They are not equipping the young people to not look for jobs. They should be equipping them on how to create them. On the other hand, formal companies are downsizing and not increasing in number at the same rate as the youngsters looking to work for them.
This is a huge problem in all African countries.
And here is the mind blowing reality - decades from now, one in four people in the world will be an African. In other words, 25% of the global population will be in Africa or African. It’s a staggering demographic. Most politicians know this. They have mentioned it in many meetings i have had on the continent. But no one is prepared to think long term about this. Instead they are stuck in narratives they least understand like space, AI/ML, wars, geo political squabbles and such similar stuff.
There are big demographic problems ahead. They can be big opportunities too.