STATSSA’S QLFS DATA IS CLEAR. SOUTH AFRICA’S RESPONSE SHOULDN’T STOP AT GRANTS.
FEBRUARY 2026, JOHANNESBURG – Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) released its Q4 2025 Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) yesterday, confirming youth unemployment at 43,8% — and with it, the predictable responses: more debate about grants, more calls for government programmes. Afrika Tikkun CEO Marc Lubner says that conversation, while not without merit, tells only half the story of the generation it is trying to serve.
“Young people, having grown up in a digital economy, do not want to be the recipients of social grants. They want the opportunity to express themselves through their work or through their businesses,” says Marc Lubner, executive chairperson and group CEO of Afrika Tikkun.
Lubner points to a stark contradiction in yesterday’s data: South Africa is producing more matriculants than ever, while employed youth fell by 113 000 in Q4 2025 alone. More school-leavers are entering the labour market with fewer available jobs, and the majority have no work experience.
“It is those youth who have not had the benefit or opportunity of having a job or any work experience that are struggling to find work in the formal sector,” he says. “And the reality is that the formal job market is not going to improve anytime soon.”
The only meaningful response to this reality is to pivot away from training job-seekers and toward building job-creators. This means equipping young people with the skills to market their services online, manage project-based income, set up digital payment systems, and grow small businesses capable of becoming future employers.
Equipping young people to build enterprises does not happen at the point of school-leaving; it requires years of holistic support, from early childhood through to the moment they are ready to step into the economy.
“If we are to impact youth unemployment, we cannot focus on small vendors. We have to look at small enterprises with the capability to grow into medium and large-sized businesses, because those will be the employers of the future,” says Lubner.
Afrika Tikkun speaks from three decades of experience, having directly supported over 40,000 children and young people annually across South Africa.
Lubner calls on government to move beyond EPWP-style programmes toward infrastructure contracts that flow directly to small youth-owned enterprises where young people experience the direct link between effort and reward.
He urges financial institutions to urgently address the seed capital and cash flow gap that prevents viable young entrepreneurs from getting started, and calls on corporates to use procurement as an immediate lever: issuing contracts to youth enterprises, even where they have no intention of growing their own payroll.
“Ultimately, this requires government, business and civil society to support young people to become the architects of their own economic future,” Lubner adds. “The young people are ready. The question is whether the systems around them are.”