New data proves it: Public employment is essential to providing work for the young

In the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), the single biggest contributor to the rise in unemployment was the loss of jobs from the termination of Phase 5 of South Africa’s biggest youth employment programme: the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI), which is part of the Presidential Employment Stimulus.

In the quarter to December 2025, the BEEI employed nearly 200,000 young people in public schools across the country, the majority of whom were young women. This year, the programme did not resume with the start of the school year, in a context in which future budgets were unconfirmed.

The latest QLFS shows that the single biggest decline in employment in the last quarter was in Community and Social Services – and within this, in education, where jobs fell by 168,000.

Statistics are estimates based on a sample survey; they are never as accurate as administrative records. Exact alignment is rare. But this match is striking enough to settle an important debate.

After the State of the Nation Address in February, critics argued that if the work opportunities reported by the President were accurate, they would “show up” in national statistics. Our response was that without these programmes, the picture would be worse. Now, the contrast is clear.

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Why public employment is vital

National statistics show that a failure to support these jobs means unemployment rises. Public employment is indeed a vital factor cushioning the labour market, and it’s time to recognise that this matters.

Of course, what we most want and need is rapid, inclusive growth to create sustainable jobs. Massive public and private effort should prioritise this outcome – and is doing so. But a reality check is also urgently needed. Even in our most optimistic growth scenarios, we will not clear current employment backlogs within the next decade. No plausible economic modelling suggests we can do so.

So what, actually, are we saying about this? Are we just going to shrug and say that only “sustainable” jobs count? And that in their absence, there is nothing we can do to address this social crisis, when in fact, we have clear evidence – here and from all over the world – that well-designed public employment programmes can help close this gap – and that they can do so on terms that create real social value, and support rather than undermine the inclusive growth we seek?

Public employment has long been a part of South Africa’s policy landscape, but the Covid pandemic allowed for rapid experimentation, and innovation that demonstrated the scope to create quality work experiences at new levels of scale; to create meaningful work and jobs to which people aspire.

The fact that 1.9 million young people from every municipality in the country applied to the last phase of the BEEI reflects the scale of demand among young people to participate.

At its peak, the Presidential Employment Stimulus delivered more than 600,000 work and livelihood support opportunities in a single year. It’s now a shadow of that – down to 30% of its peak budgets from the fiscus, whittled down through cuts and uncertain one-year budget extensions that make effective planning and implementation extremely challenging. Under these conditions, it’s as if the programmes are being set up to fail.

Except, they haven’t.

Instead, the Presidential Employment Stimulus has demonstrated that well-designed programmes can build relevant work experience and ongoing economic engagement for young people otherwise excluded from labour markets; break cycles of long-term unemployment that erode employability and self-esteem; address a wider range of social priorities, strengthen local economies through spending in poor communities; and help sustain social stability in a society under extraordinary pressure.

Public employment is an investment in people, in communities and in labour market infrastructure. It is economic and social scaffolding.

In the context of our crisis of missing jobs, it’s time to move beyond framings that present sustainable jobs and public employment as binary policy choices.

Instead, we need to use all the levers at our disposal to enable economic participation, with investment in quality public employment recognised as a permanent pillar of employment policy. Not a stopgap, not a crisis measure, but an enduring part of our responses to deep structural unemployment – resourced and institutionalised on terms that allow for the best possible social and labour market outcomes. DM