WATCH | Businesses warn of surge in unemployed graduates in KZN

With youth unemployment having reached crisis proportions, KwaZulu-Natal Treasury MEC Francois Rodgers has pledged that funds earmarked for stimulating economic growth and job creation in the provincial budget will be used strictly for their intended purpose. Rodgers made the commitment on Thursday while addressing business leaders during a post-budget breakfast hosted by Absa Group in Zimbali, north of Durban. Central to the spending plan are public infrastructure programmes aimed at both improving service delivery and expanding employment opportunities, particularly for young people struggling to gain entry into the labour market.

Among the key allocations highlighted by Rodgers are additional grant funds for education and health infrastructure. The Education Infrastructure Programme received an additional R505 million to accelerate the construction and upgrading of schools, while the Health Facility Revitalisation Programme was allocated an extra R641 million to improve healthcare facilities across the province. Rodgers told captains of industry that the real test of the budget would lie not in the announcements made in the legislature, but in the effective implementation of the plans contained within it.

“Putting a budget together is the first phase. The most important phase is implementation,” he said. This comes as thousands of young graduates in KZN struggle to find employment, with many still sitting at home years after completing their studies.

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This is despite recent figures from Statistics South Africa showing that the country’s official unemployment rate declined by 0,5 percentage points from 31,9% in the third quarter of 2025 to 31,4% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Business leaders said the slight improvement offers little comfort on the ground. The Pietermaritzburg and Midlands Chamber of Business (PMCB) said it was alarming to see how many graduates are unemployed in the province. PMCB chief executive Melanie Veness said youth unemployment is a complex challenge — structural, educational and economic — driven by a combination of a serious skills mismatch, poor-quality education and few opportunities in rural areas.

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