As South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis deepens, with joblessness among those aged 15 to 24 reaching 60.9 percent, South African educational technology startup Ukiyo has launched the Global Student Support Platform (GSSP), a mobile app designed to connect young people with scholarships, jobs, mentorship opportunities, accommodation and mental health support.
The launch comes as millions of young South Africans struggle to transition from education into meaningful economic participation, despite accounting for nearly half of the country’s working-age population.
According to Nozuko Mzamo, founder of Ukiyo, the challenge is not a lack of ambition among young people but the absence of systems that connect them to the resources and opportunities needed to succeed.
“South Africa does not have a shortage of ambitious young people. It has a shortage of integrated pathways into economic participation and systems that connect young people to what they need to succeed,” Mzamo said in a statement. “We built GSSP to support the full journey, from finding a place to study and securing education funding, to building a career and accessing mentorship.”
The scale of South Africa’s youth unemployment challenge
Like many African countries, South Africa continues to struggle with high unemployment, with young people bearing the brunt of the crisis.
According to Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), the country’s working-age population stood at 42.2 million people aged between 15 and 64 years in the first quarter of 2026, an increase of 121,000 from the previous quarter.
Nearly half of this population—21 million people or 49.7 percent—were aged between 15 and 34 years, underscoring the importance of youth participation to the country’s economic future. However, labour market outcomes for this demographic remain largely unfavourable.
Data from the survey showed that only 5.6 million young people aged 15-34 were employed during the quarter, while 4.7 million were unemployed and a further 10.6 million were outside the labour force altogether.
Although South Africa’s overall unemployment rate stood at 32.7 percent in the first quarter of 2026, young people faced significantly higher levels of joblessness. The unemployment rate among those aged 15-24 reached 60.9 percent, while unemployment among those aged 25-34 stood at 40.6 percent.
The figures also highlight the difficulty young South Africans face in securing employment. The absorption rate, which measures the proportion of the working-age population that is employed, was just 10.1% among those aged 15-24, the lowest across all age groups.
For those aged 25-34, labour market participation was relatively high at 72 percent, yet the absorption rate stood at only 42.8 percent, revealing a substantial gap between those actively seeking work and those who were actually employed.
Beyond unemployment, South Africa is also grappling with a growing number of young people who are neither working nor pursuing education or training.
Statistics South Africa reported that approximately 3.9 million of the country’s 10.3 million people aged 15-24 were classified as not in employment, education or training (NEET) during the first quarter of 2026, representing 37.6 percent of that age group.
The situation has worsened over the past year, with the NEET rate for both the 15-24 and broader 15-34 age groups increasing by 0.5 percentage points between the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026. More than four in every ten South Africans aged 15-34 were not in employment, education or training during the period.
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From bursaries to first jobs: How Ukiyo hopes to bridge the opportunity gap
Founded in 2017 after operating informally since 2014, Ukiyo was created to address some of the structural barriers contributing to youth unemployment, including limited access to information, funding opportunities and career development support.
Its newly launched Global Student Support Platform (GSSP) brings together scholarships, bursaries, accommodation listings, mentorship programmes, tutoring, wellness services, internships, graduate programmes and entry-level job opportunities within a single mobile application that students can access free of charge.
The company says the platform has already attracted more than 4,200 users during its private beta phase. Those users generated over 1,300 click-throughs to bursary and scholarship opportunities and more than 2,100 click-throughs to job listings.
Mzamo said the platform was designed to support students throughout their entire education-to-employment journey rather than focusing solely on job placement.
“Whether you’re figuring out what to study and where, looking for bursaries or scholarships to fund your studies, needing academic, psychosocial or career readiness support, hunting for student deals, or searching for your first job, GSSP walks with you through every one of those milestones and equips you with the skills and information you need at each stage,” Mzamo said.
Ukiyo currently works with a range of partners, including higher education institutions, employers, accommodation providers and funders. Its partners include Thrive Accommodation, North-West University, The LINK by Airlink and Emeris.
The company plans to introduce intelligent matching capabilities that will automatically connect students with relevant opportunities based on their profiles and interests. While the platform currently focuses on South African youth, it has already begun listing global exchange programme opportunities and is exploring expansion into broader African and international markets.
For South Africa, where millions of young people remain disconnected from education, employment and training opportunities, platforms such as GSSP represent an emerging digital approach to addressing one of the country’s most persistent economic challenges.