South Africa’s unemployment crisis was starkly exposed recently when the South African Police Service (SAPS) received over a million applications in just three weeks for only 5,500 basic police training vacancies.
Professor Kedibone Phage, a governance expert at North West University, described the situation as a reflection of a generation gripped by hopelessness.
He said the overwhelming response to a limited number of posts underscores the depth of desperation among South Africa’s youth, warning that it constitutes a national emergency. Said Phage:
When more than a million young people scramble for basic training posts in the police, it’s not just about job-seeking; it’s a cry for help from a generation without hope.
It is actually a confirmation that we have an unemployment crisis and that we do not have a way of addressing it.
Applications closed at midnight on Friday, with a staggering total of 1,049,998 submissions. Of these, 595,049 came from women, while 454,949 were from men.
According to the South African Police Service, more than 300,000 of the applicants are university graduates.
SAPS national spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said the organisation is accustomed to receiving such high volumes of applications. She said:
The high number of applications received is encouraging for us to know that young people are ready to play their part in the fight against crime. Young people are ready to serve and protect the people of SA.
Our target graduates are those with law-related degrees and diplomas, policing, criminology. We are also looking at the BSc students to capacitate our forensic labs, those that collect and analyse evidence from crime scenes to link perpetrators to the scene. [We need] IT experts to maintain our databases and information, case dockets and so on.
However, economic analysts like Azar Jammine, director and chief economist at Econometrix, argue that the surge in applications is driven more by a need for economic survival than a desire to serve the community. He said:
I doubt whether they really want to become police officers. I think they’re just looking for any job. And the police are offering them those jobs at the moment.
So people are applying for any job they can get, and this is why, in part, we have a dysfunctional public sector, because people don’t apply for government jobs because they are excited and they want to serve the public. They are applying because our economy is not catering to their needs, for their skills and their interests.
Dr Kenneth Creamer, an economist at Wits University, offered a more balanced take. He acknowledged that while graduate unemployment is real, people with higher education are still less likely to be jobless overall.
He added that, if handled properly, SAPS could actually benefit from having a more skilled and educated group of recruits in the mix.
More: SowetanLIVE
Pindula WhatsApp Channel
Facebook Page
Leave a Reply