In Eswatini, 37.4% of the population is aged between 15-34 years, with a 50.7% and 49.3% ratio of females and males respectively. Evidently, the youth population is fast growing and offers a great opportunity for economic growth. If properly harnessed, young people could be a great resource for economic growth. Therefore, the high proportion of youth in a country where only few jobs are generated, might be a considerable demographic risk rather than an engine for economic growth.
Some studies have pointed to the education system and a mismatch between the skills required by industry and what the country is producing, whilst other studies have alluded the weak investment environment as one of the contributors to low economic growth.
The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Development Policy was developed with the aim to encourage youth entrepreneurship by providing training, stimulating lending, and providing support to individuals wishing to establish businesses. According to the UN Youth Entrepreneurship Report (2013), youth in Eswatini are drawn to entrepreneurship out of necessity to escape unemployment and build livelihoods, and opportunity to realize their vision and contribute to their country and community. As a result, many of the businesses are not sustainable. Although entrepreneurship has been identified as the key in helping the youth out of poverty, there has been little focus and investment on youth that desire to pursue other career options, hence a need to provide support towards empowerment of Eswatini youth through skills development and linking graduates with local job opportunities.
According to the Eswatini national Skills Audit Report, labor market trends have only changed marginally in the last 14 years and are characterized by low labor diversity and dynamism. The service sector constitutes more than 60% of overall employment while agriculture is just above 10% and industry is under 20%. The advent of the covid 19 pandemic led to the decline a decline in industry employment rate due to forced company closure. The labor market in Eswatini is predominantly driven by the service sector and informal employment.
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