Abstract:
South Africa’s persistently high NEET rate, with nearly one in three youth aged 15–24 not in employment, education, or training, signals a generation on hold. This study provides an update on the scale, profile, and predictors of being NEET among youth, using nationally representative data from the 2015 and 2025 Quarterly Force Surveys and 2014 and 2024 General Household Surveys. The NEET rate has hovered above 30% for a decade and reached 34.2% in 2025, affecting over 3.3 million young people. The analysis reveals stark disparities by gender, race, age, education, location, and household income, with young women, Black African youth, those aged 20–24, those with matric or less and residing in low-income households at greatest risk. While most NEET youth are actively seeking work, many remain trapped in long-term unemployment, especially new labour market entrants, a situation that has become more entrenched over the past decade. Multivariate analysis confirms key predictors of NEET status, including age, gender, education, work experience, location, and marital status. The findings thus continue to underscore the complex interplay of multiple structural and individual-level factors that keep large numbers of young people socio-economically excluded. Despite decades of policy attention to the challenge, South Africa remains unable to reliably transition young people into sustainable income earning opportunities – and thus, out of poverty. The results confirm the urgent need to develop and implement an integrated, multi-sectoral approach that rigorously strengthens supply-side readiness, scales supportive and effective intermediation accessible to all young people and enhances demand-side incentives and responsibility. That approach should be able to provide support for the (often long-term) unemployed, recognising the need to remediate for scarring effects, and to bridge the school-to-work transitions through well-targeted, multi-dimensional interventions, tailored to diverse youth experiences. Without accelerated action to support youth onto pathways to sustainable livelihoods, South Africa risks leaving an entire generation behind.
