Youth and the just transition. A profile of young NEET in Mpumalanga

With one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world, South Africa’s planning for a just transition needs to take into account the vulnerabilities of its youth cohorts, especially those that can be qualified as not in education, employment or training. This paper provides a profile of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEET) in Mpumalanga province, the region with the highest exposure to the coal exit. Using data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), the Census and the General Household Survey (GHS), our findings show that Mpumalanga has had a NEET youth rate of over 37% for the past decade – representing over 638 947 young people between the ages of 15 to 35, with almost three-quarters of them living in income-poor households. Contrary to popular belief, our findings dispel the misconceptions that young NEETs are disinterested or unwilling to work, as more than 640.000 of these youth expressed wanting to work. However, our analysis also reveals that a significant portion of unemployed young NEETs are new entrants to the labour market – meaning they have never worked before - who have been persistently searching for employment for extended periods of more than five years. Additionally, the study identifies key factors associated with being NEET, such as gender, household income and household adult employment. Notably, being female and living in income-poor households emerged as the factors most influential on the likelihood of being NEET among Black youths in Mpumalanga. The results also highlighted a pronounced gender dimension; being married and having children under the age of seven significantly elevated the probability of being NEET among Black female youths. Our findings underscore the need for a nuanced approach in developing targeted policies and interventions that align with NEET youth aspirations, considering the evolving landscape of the energy sector. In a country where access to the labour market explains the highest share of inequality, not giving enough focus to one of the most vulnerable populations such as the NEET youth in the process of a structural transformation will only increase socioeconomic inequalities.