South Africa's Youth Unemployment: A Private-Sector Fix

A City at a Crossroads

Johannesburg is home to some of the most ambitious young people on the African continent — and some of the most locked-out. Youth unemployment in South Africa sits at a staggering rate that has long outpaced government responses, and the debate over what to do next is heating up ahead of local elections. Into that debate steps Galston Anthony, Johannesburg mayoral candidate for the Know Your Power (KYP) party, with a pitch that breaks sharply from the usual political playbook.

Speaking during a community outreach visit to Ward 100 in Cosmo City, Anthony delivered a message that cut straight to the point: the government needs to stop trying to be the employer of last resort and start building the conditions where private businesses can hire at scale.

The Core Argument: Shift the Role of the State

Anthony’s central claim is both simple and structurally bold. South Africa’s traditional approach — the state stepping in as a primary job creator through public-sector programmes and short-term interventions — is no longer fit for purpose. The scale of the youth crisis has simply outgrown it.

“We cannot continue telling young people that they are the future while leaving them without meaningful opportunities in the present,” Anthony said during the visit.

What he proposes instead is a fundamental repositioning of government: from employer to facilitator. Rather than generating jobs directly, the state would focus its energy on creating the economic environment where thousands of private businesses can grow, compete, and hire. It is a shift in logic as much as in policy — one that reflects a broader liberal economic perspective gaining traction among younger African voters who are increasingly sceptical of top-down state solutions.

What the Blueprint Actually Looks Like

Connecting Township Entrepreneurs to Bigger Networks

One of Anthony’s flagship proposals centres on network integration — a deliberate effort to bridge the gap between emerging entrepreneurs in townships like Cosmo City and the financial institutions, technology sectors, and corporate networks concentrated in wealthier parts of Johannesburg. The idea is straightforward: talent and hustle exist in abundance in marginalised communities, but the connections that turn a small operation into a scalable business are almost entirely absent.

This is not a new observation. What Anthony frames as distinctive is the mayoral-level commitment to making those connections institutional rather than incidental — embedding them in city policy rather than leaving them to chance or charity.

Capital, Mentorship, and Getting Past Survivalism

The second pillar targets the moment most township businesses get stuck: early-stage growth. Anthony calls for structured access to early-stage capital, mentorship, and scaling support designed specifically to push enterprises beyond what he describes as “mere survivalism” — the trap where a business keeps its founder alive but never grows large enough to employ others.

This is where the candidate’s personal background becomes relevant. Anthony brings over two decades of hands-on experience across the creative and entertainment industries, spanning filmmaking, music, brand management, and digital media. He has operated in spaces where access to capital and networks determines whether a creative idea becomes a viable business or quietly dies. That lived experience shapes the specificity of his proposals in ways that distinguish them from generic policy language.

Why This Matters for Young South Africans

For the 15-to-25 age bracket entering the labour market right now, the stakes of this debate are not abstract. They are immediate, daily, and often demoralising. South Africa’s youth unemployment figures — consistently among the highest in the world — represent millions of young people who are educated, connected, and capable, yet structurally excluded from economic participation.

Anthony’s framing speaks directly to that frustration. His argument is not that young people need to be saved by government programmes, but that the system around them needs to be rebuilt so that their energy and talent can actually convert into economic mobility. That is a meaningfully different proposition — and one that resonates with a generation that has grown up watching public-sector promises fail to materialise.

Whether his specific proposals are deliverable at the mayoral level is a legitimate question. City governments operate within significant fiscal and legislative constraints. But the conversation Anthony is pushing — about facilitation over direct employment, about network access as infrastructure, about capital as a youth rights issue — is one that Johannesburg’s political landscape badly needs.

The Bigger Picture

KYP remains a challenger party in a city long dominated by established political forces, and Anthony faces an uphill electoral battle. But the ideas he is surfacing in places like Cosmo City reflect a growing current in African political thought: that economic inclusion for young people requires structural rewiring, not just more programmes layered onto a broken system.

The question of who governs Johannesburg is also a question of who gets to shape the economic future of one of the continent’s most consequential cities. For young South Africans watching that contest unfold, Anthony’s pitch offers something rarer than a campaign promise — it offers a different way of thinking about the problem entirely.