The Fourth Industrial Revolution and high Unemployment Rates in South Africa: A Youth Context

Abstract

This paper is conceptual and uses a desktop survey to gather literature about the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), its advantages and disadvantages, and its impact on the South African job market. The paper intends to uncover the impact of the 4IR on the South African job market. In an attempt to deal with one of South Africa’s triple challenges (poverty, inequality and unemployment), namely unemployment, South Africa finds itself in the introduction of the 4IR, with which it must acquaint itself. It is, however, worrying when looking at the year-by-year escalation of South Africa’s high unemployment rate. When looking at the dire status and escalation of the unemployment rate (which is affecting South Africans, most particularly the youth), it is not ironic that South Africa is inadequately prepared and inept to embrace the changes that the 4IR brings. While the country is making amendments in the education sector in terms of preparing the youth for the skills that will be relevant to the changes and give them access to employment, this has come a bit late to be able to address the high unemployment rate. There is already a high rate of retrenchments within the banking sector, which is cause for concern in terms of labour unrest that the country is (in)famous for.