As South Africa’s unemployment rate continues to ascend amid a 2025 quarter one solitary percentage increase from the 31.9% posted in the last quarter of 2024, it has become increasingly incumbent for the country’s youth to seize entrepreneurship opportunities. South Africa’s youth, aged between 18 and 35, make up 46.1% of this overall 32.9%, according to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey released in May 2025.

innobiz DUT are profiling Durban University of Technology’s (DUT’s) budding entrepreneurs who employ young people, looking at the challenges that they are facing daily in their lives as up and coming entrepreneurs.

Last month, a Future of Jobs Summit was held in Johannesburg, in yet another effort to bring the country’s best and influential minds from government, business, civil society, and labour to thrash out ideas to assist the country emerge from this decades-long unemployment conundrum.

However, as indicated by the unemployment rate, particularly the youth, quick and implementable solutions, are a must and this is where mass entrepreneurship incubation programmes are and can continue playing a meaningful role.

Speaking at the Youth Day Commemoration event in Potchefstroom on Monday, Deputy President Paul Mashatile once more acknowledged the unemployment issue.

“The reality is that many young people in South Africa are not living the future they hoped for, they are confronted by high levels of unemployment, inequality and lack of access to opportunities, especially in the digital world,” he said.

Across the length and breadth of South Africa, universities, their partners and government entities Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE), under the Department of Higher Education and Training, have come to the fore to address unemployment with the inculcation of entrepreneurship education into the curriculum in South African universities.

At the Durban University of Technology, the institution has made it abundantly clear, through its ENVISION2030 roadmap, that it was focusing on producing future-ready students by focusing on entrepreneurship, innovation, practical skills, and a strong ethical foundation.

Spurring on the University’s intake of first year students at his ADAPT@DUT First Year 2025 Orientation address, DUT Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Thandwa Zizwe Mthembu, earlier this year encouraged students to make use of opportunities availed by university entities such as the innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation to be creative, innovative and entrepreneurial to ensure that they become job creators instead of job seekers.

“We are no longer training job seekers, but inventors, innovators, who will create jobs for the 400 000 fellow matriculants who have not had the opportunity to enrol at a university.

This approach to entrepreneurship development in the University is underscored by the emphasis placed on entrepreneurship and innovation in shaping the future of DUT students and the broader community, aligning with the University’s vision for entrepreneurship development and ENVISION2030.

To this end the innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is the University’s umbrella body for all entrepreneurial activities, with its own intensive three-year incubation programme designed to churn out well rounded young entrepreneurs with the know-how and acumen to manoeuvre confidently in a cut-throat entrepreneurship space.

One such example of a young mover and shaker youth entrepreneur, trained and moulded by the Centre’s thorough and laser sharp incubation programme, is Ms Londiwe Gumede. She is the founder and director of Pikankani Ceiling, Partitions and Bulkhead Specialist.

Under the tutelage of the innobiz DUT Centre, Ms Gumede, like hundreds of others who have passed through the Centre’s doors since its official launch in 2021 and in its previous guise since 2018, has seen her business grow exponentially through the workshops, training, and market opportunities she has accessed free of charge at the Centre.

Ms. Gumede established her enterprise in 2020, during the throes of the deadly and devastating Covid-19 pandemic, and joined the innobiz DUT Centre in 2024, a year after enrolling at the Durban University of Technology.

Despite juggling her academic work, she is in her third year in pursuit of a Diploma in Business Administration, she currently boasts a team of 16 people that she employs with six of them employed permanently while 10 are on contract.

Sharing her overall experience managing a team of young employees, ranging between ages 21 and 37, Ms. Gumede admits that it is a journey with some challenges, explaining that sometimes it is one thing to know what needs to be done but another in knowing how to do it.

“I feel most of the time we know what needs to be done, yet we ignore how the client wants it done. Sometimes they can think they know it all, which is not the case.

“However, the staff have very sharp minds and can adjust according to the needs of customers. They are very opinionated, which is something I value a lot, but there is room for improvement,” she explains.

With a young complement of staff, she says that she has also developed her own unique way of dealing with issues of professionalism and lack of experience amongst the staff.

“I like to be hands-on, so I don’t let new employees engage directly with customers. They first need to shadow an experienced person to learn how we interact with our customers to ensure we give our best services,” she details, sharing that she made it a duty to share with her staff the same mentorship she has been exposed to in her journey with innobiz.

Further delving into the what she feels is necessary in the way of support that young employers need to succeed in managing young talent, Ms. Gumede says: “A young entrepreneur always needs a team of advisors and mentors that would be able to advise them on what they can and cannot do, while also showing them the ropes in how to attain and retain customers and the best business practices that we should be following.”

With South Africa’s high unemployment in mind and the burden of creating employment opportunities now on the shoulders of the youth itself, Ms. Gumede implores the youth to take it as their individual responsibility to create employment opportunities.

She also explained that although it was not easy as a young entrepreneur to get support to employ the youth, which is possible.

“We are not just hiring the youth but the mothers and fathers of tomorrow. They need our support to build our economy. There also should not be any age restrictions in terms of employment. Circumstances should take priority,” she encouraged.

Pictured: Londiwe Gumede, founder and director of Pikankani Ceiling, Partition and Bulkhead Specialist.

Samkelo Mtshali