Volunteering may be the key to creating opportunities for young South Africans

Forty-five percent. That is nearly one in every two young South Africans between the ages of 15 and 34 who want to work but cannot find a job. According to Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey, young people not in employment, education or training in this age group increased by half a percentage point between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, reaching 45.6% in Q1 2026. I know what numbers can do. While they help us understand the scale of the challenge, they can also distance us from the human realities they represent. Behind these statistics are young people in our communities and neighbourhoods, each with aspirations, talent and potential, yet without access to meaningful economic opportunities. South Africa has a remarkably young population. People between the ages of 15 and 34 make up just over a third of our population, with an average age of 28 to 29. In almost any other context, this would be celebrated as a powerful economic advantage, a signal of energy, innovation and future productive capacity. Instead, we face a growing risk of a generation being left behind. Today, close to two million young South Africans are classified as discouraged work seekers. They have not given up because they lack ambition to contribute. They have stopped actively looking because the labour market has repeatedly told them that there is no room. That is not a personal failure – it’s a response to the environment in which they feel discouraged before they even reach their first real chance at work. This should concern all of us, because when young people lose hope, the consequences extend far beyond the labour market. South Africa does not have a shortage of young talent or of organisations investing in youth development. What we have is a shortage of pathways that connect their potential to real opportunity. Too many promising initiatives exist in isolation from one another, while too many young people remain disconnected from the skills, networks and experiences that could help them enter the workforce. Volunteering can build skills and create opportunities With youth unemployment being one of South Africa’s greatest challenges, we need to be deliberate about identifying and scaling what is already working. One of the most overlooked pathways to opportunities, I believe, is volunteering. When designed with intention and linked to skills development, mentorship and networks, volunteering can become far more than an act of service. It can become a bridge to economic opportunity. Mentorship is a particularly powerful mechanism that leaders with specialised skills can use to share their expertise, build resilience and guide young people to navigate their path into the workforce. Through mentorship, beneficiaries gain valuable capabilities in problem-solving and creative thinking, preparing them for the workplace and improving their readiness for employment. Mentoring and opening opportunities for learning also foster a sense of belonging and connection to opportunities that may otherwise feel beyond reach. What strikes me the most is the evidence of what is already working but sitting quietly in silos across business sectors. The International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE), working across 164 countries and drawing on insights from nearly 15,000 people, has introduced Reskilling Revolution Africa in partnership with IBM. This programme has already engaged more than 30,000 young people across Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa, with 153,000 hours of verified volunteering and more than 2,000 internationally recognised digital credentials earned. Significantly, 63% of these participants were young women. Then there is Zlto, an award-winning digital rewards platform, co-founded by Allan van der Meulen from Mitchells Plain. He developed the app to help young South Africans overcome barriers to employment by rewarding them for community volunteering, learning and other positive contributions. The success of this platform is evident in that, today, it has more than one million users, has tracked more than 2.5 million hours of community service and has distributed more than R3-million in rewards that volunteers can redeem across 3,000 stores. The Zlto platform’s success shows both the appetite among young people to take part and the potential to scale its effect even more. From conversations to solutions How do we move from conversations about youth employment to coordinated solutions? The question is not whether solutions exist. The question is how to bring them together at scale. One of the most important shifts in thinking is recognising that volunteering, when designed with intention and connected to real opportunities, is a legitimate employment pipeline. Research by IAVE has shown that when young people volunteer, they can gain real, measurable competencies, including critical thinking, communication, resilience and self-leadership. These are essential for the future of work. Yet we are not framing volunteer work as experience or integrating volunteerism into policies and strategies. The United Nations General Assembly declared 2026 the International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development, which recognises that sustainable development goals will not be accomplished without volunteer action. Globally, 34.5% of the working-age population – 2.1 billion people – volunteer each month. Evidence continues to show that work experience, mentorship and networks are regularly the factors that help young people access their first job. A study conducted by the Harvard Center for International Development found that mentored students were 25% less likely to reject job offers and 27% more likely to be employed three months after graduation. These resources already exist in abundance within every corporation in this country. The challenge is not a shortage of solutions. It is the absence of the alignment and collaboration that can connect solutions to the young people who need them. What we are calling for is a coordinated, cross-sector movement where corporates, NGOs, the government and young people themselves co-design pathways into work and share resources. This movement is one that doesn’t compete in the social impact space but that collaborates to give more young people access to volunteering so they can build skills towards employment. We have the knowledge. We have the platforms and tools. What we need now is to move from working in silos to building something collectively that can transform and scale the future of our young people. I want every leader and person involved in volunteering to ask: How can we use our skills, our networks, existing platforms and our people to open opportunities for young people? The young people of this country are not asking for handouts. They are asking for access to experience, access to learning and access to opportunity. We owe it to them to open access to employment that will make sure our country can benefit from their productivity and resilience in the future. The long-term prosperity of our business sector is inseparable from the communities in which it operates. It depends on how we respond. South Africa’s demographic advantage should not be a demographic risk. When young people thrive, our communities thrive – we all thrive. DM Comments Scroll down to load comments...