A youth activist noted with concern that youth are not employed because the policies that govern the young people are clearly not defined.
Augustino Deng Alier, the Executive Director for South Sudan Youth Peace and Development Organization defines youth unemployment as a situation where the youth need jobs, but the jobs are not available.
He says the reasons why there is a high rampant rate of youth unemployment in the country is because the youth policy is not adopted, and the definition of youth is clearly not defined to better understand who a youth is and who is not.
‘’Policy that governs youth is a major issue, youth policy has clearly not been defined in the country and that causes people not to understand who a youth is and who is not. The youth are not employed because policies are not in place that’s why there are no opportunities in Job’’ Augustino noted.
According to the International Labour Organization definition, which is now the most widely used definition, at least as regards the reporting of unemployment statistics, the unemployed are defined as those people who have not worked more than one hour during the short reference period but who are available for and actively seeking work.
Youth unemployment is on the rise in South Sudan as it poses huge economic challenges, and it leads to unsustainable growth of the economy.
The implications of youth unemployment are both social, economic and political and as such ignoring the roles played by the youth in the society amounts to threatening the very survival of a country like South Sudan.
Augustino Deng observes that many youth are not job creators but many of them are looking for white color jobs hence causing youth unemployment because the youth are not well versed on how to be job creators in the country.
‘’Youth themselves are not job creators, they always want white color jobs, so it makes it an issue for the youth not to have employment because not all employment are white color jobs. Government cannot employ everyone some people have to get out their ad create job opportunities and create jobs for this young people.’’
He says for the country to develop economically, socially, and politically, there is a need for youth empowerment and employment for the country to grow.
‘’When youth are not employed, they become a danger to the society causing fear and insecurity to the Country, for any country to progress you need the population of this 72% who are the young people, if they are not employed and empowered, how do you expect the country to develop because they are the people that can bring development, they need to be employed because when they are not employed the country cannot move’’
‘’There should be a framework that creates more jobs for the young people, we need institutions to ensure that the country is secured so that people can be interested to come and invest and create jobs for the young people’’ Augustino told The Radio Community.