Chapter 09 · The lived market

Youth idleness, retrenchment, and the wage that follows

Behind the pipeline metrics sit the human realities: forty percent of fifteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds are neither in employment, education nor training. This chapter maps that ground.

NEET rate (15-24)
0%
NEET count
0m
Expanded unemploy.
0%
Avg months job-seeking
0
By province

Where idleness concentrates

Gauteng

15-24
33.5%
730k people
Discouraged
210k
Job-seeking
12.1m

Western Cape

15-24
29.6%
302k people
Discouraged
82k
Job-seeking
10.4m

KwaZulu-Natal

15-24
42.8%
718k people
Discouraged
220k
Job-seeking
15.8m

Eastern Cape

15-24
51.6%
588k people
Discouraged
204k
Job-seeking
18.2m

Limpopo

15-24
52.0%
510k people
Discouraged
192k
Job-seeking
19.8m

Mpumalanga

15-24
47.8%
344k people
Discouraged
148k
Job-seeking
16.4m

North West

15-24
49.7%
308k people
Discouraged
124k
Job-seeking
17.2m

Free State

15-24
47.0%
216k people
Discouraged
96k
Job-seeking
16.1m

Northern Cape

15-24
46.7%
112k people
Discouraged
46k
Job-seeking
16.8m
By demographic

Age and gender splits (national)

AgeGenderPopulation (k)NEET (k)NEET rateNarrow U%Expanded U%Matric %
15-24Male5 5202 13038.6%41.5%56.8%55%
15-24Female5 3202 28042.9%46.2%62.8%53%
25-34All10 2805 27051.3%45.1%58.0%58%