Graduates in jobs limbo

Tertiary students are writing their final exams but thousands of them are condemned to joining the ranks of the unemployed, even if they graduate.

Free Market Foundation economist Loane Sharp said: "There are 859000 unfilled vacancies in the private sector."

But he estimated that at least 590000 people who have a diploma are without work.

He blames the mismatch on tertiary educational institutions steering students into the arts, humanities and social sciences when the demand is for managers, accountants, lawyers, doctors and engineers.

Statistics SA's quarterly labour force survey indicated on Thursday that the unemployment rate is 25.4%.

Although the survey indicated that only 11.3% of those with tertiary qualifications are unemployed, people who have stopped looking for workare not taken into account when calculating the percentage.

South Africa has more than 2.5million people who have given up on job hunting.

When the discouraged unemployed are taken into account, it emerges that as many as 70% of South Africans aged under 25, who could work, do not have a job.

Sharp said 20% of graduates have failed to find work in the past 12 months .

Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene in his mini-budget last week said that 210000 people have been employed through the government's youth wage subsidy scheme.

Sharp believes the economy would have to grow by 4% annually to accommodate each year's crop of matrics.

Nene last week revised the government's growth forecast for this year to 1.4% from the 2.7% predicted in February.

Nene admitted that above-inflation wage increases for public servants would lead to a decrease in jobs.

Trade unions are demanding an increase of 15%, whereas inflation is at around 6%.

Sharp warned matrics that they had a better chance of getting a job without a Further Education and Training college qualification than with one, as these courses had a reputation for producing inferior quality graduates.