Youth unemployment is one of the most important issues that the country is facing currently. As reported by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) earlier last month, the unemployment rate increased to 26.6 percent during the first quarter of 2019.
It’s an issue that the Institute for Risk Management South Africa‘s (IRMSA) Risk Report 2019 also highlights, with the report creating awareness of risks facing South Africa, as well as five industries also at risk.
South Africa’s top five risks are:
- Structural unemployment
- Growing income disparity and inequality
- Failure of government in public sector
- unmanageable fraud and corruption
- inadequate/sub-standard education and skills development
The top five industry risks are:
- Failure of governance (public)
- Inadequate/sb-standard education hand skills development
- Cyber attacks (shutdown of internet of things)
- Information security:data fraud and data theft
- Micro development
“The value of this report lies in it being assimilated into the risk management process so that it may contribute to a better strategy development and decision-making. I believe the IRMSA report is for South African industries and is the catalyst for change and for measuring our real contribution in changing our country and our organisations,” said CEO of IRMSA, Gillian Le Cordeur.
“The 2019 IRMSA Report should not only highlight what had to be addressed but also what had to be done differently in our country, sectors and organisations with regard to not only improve the treatment of risks but also the risk profession,” added chief risk advisor, Christopher Palm.
Now that the risks have been identified, the larger question is what action will be taken. The government has known for some time that unemployment needs addressing, but yet no tangible plans have tackled this issue. As such it will be interesting to see what happens from here.
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]
