JOHANNESBURG, Sept 12 (NNN-SANEWS) — Since its inception in 2020, as an endeavour to address the country’s youth unemployment challenge, the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) has exceeded its target of reaching 5 million young people and has provided 1.5 million earning opportunities.
Briefing the media on PYEI results for the first quarter of the 2025/26 financial year, in Johannesburg, on Thursday, Deputy Minister in The Presidency Nonceba Mhlauli highlighted that more than 234,000 opportunities were accessed by young people through the National Pathway Management Network (NPMN), between April and June 2025.
“These results reflect the collective efforts of government, private sector, and civil society partners to link young people to meaningful pathways into the labour market. A major highlight of the quarter was the launch of Phase 4 of the Revitalised National Youth Service (NYS), which will provide 40,000 paid service opportunities to young people across the country,” the Deputy Minister said.
Implemented by the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) under the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, the NYS promotes active citizenship by engaging young people in structured service opportunities that contribute to their communities while building their skills, work readiness, and sense of agency.
Since its revitalisation, the NYS has placed more than 84,000 young people in paid service roles, contributing both to community development and individual growth.
The PYEI is an intervention aimed at addressing youth unemployment through innovative partnerships and programmes such as Jobs Boost and skills development initiatives.
With a R300 million innovative funding mechanism designed to tackle youth unemployment in South Africa, the Jobs Boost Outcomes Fund is South Africa’s largest formal sector employment outcomes fund.
The fund uses a pay-for-performance model to partner with skills providers to equip previously excluded young people to access high-quality jobs.
The Deputy Minister highlighted that by the end of June 2025, over 8,100 young people had been enrolled, with 5,436 placed into quality jobs, and more than R115 million disbursed to 12 implementation partners for verified outcomes.
“The programme is already exceeding expectations in job retention rates, with thousands of young people sustaining employment beyond three and six months,” the Deputy Minister said.
She noted that Jobs Boost achieved a milestone this quarter, when it was selected as one of ten global recipients of the Outcomes Finance Alliance’s Outcomes Accelerator, from over 500 applications.
The prestigious award recognises Jobs Boost as a pioneering example of outcomes-based financing, demonstrating how public-private collaboration can drive measurable impact in youth employment.
“The grant provides funding and technical support to scale the initiative beyond its pilot phase—enabling the programme to reach thousands more excluded young people and deepen its work in linking funding directly to quality, sustained jobs. As we scale Jobs Boost, this support will help us reach thousands more excluded young people with life1] changing employment opportunities,” Mhlauli said.
Looking ahead, the Deputy Minister said the PYEI remains committed to unlocking opportunities in priority growth sectors, strengthening the systems that connect young people to work, and scaling innovative interventions that deliver measurable, lasting impact. — NNN-SANEWS
