Profile of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) aged 15-24 years in South Africa: an annual update

This paper presents the latest profile of young people aged 15 to 24 not in education, employment, or training (NEET) in South Africa, utilising data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), Quarter 1, and the General Household Survey (GHS). The findings reveal that South Africa has consistently had a NEET youth rate above 30% for the past decade, with over 3 million young people affected. This signifies a failure to achieve SDG 8, Target 8.6, of substantially reducing the proportion of NEET youth by 2020 and poses a risk to the country's progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Contrary to popular belief, our findings dispel the misconceptions that NEET youth are disinterested or unwilling to work, as more than 2 million of these youth expressed wanting to work. The analysis shows that a significant portion of the unemployed NEETs are new entrants to the labour market who have been searching for employment for extended periods, exceeding one year or even five years. Additional analysis shows that a staggering 2.4 million (68.5%) of young NEETs continue to reside in income-poor households. The analysis further identifies being female, married, residing in urban areas, living in income-poor households and households with children under seven years as key factors associated with being NEET among youths. Being married and living in income-poor households are the most influential factors in the likelihood of being NEET among young people. These findings carry important policy implications for reducing the NEET rate in South Africa and for fostering increased educational and labour market engagement among young people.