About Us

SAYE – South African Youth Economy made a decision to address the youth unemployment problem and this will be focused on creating industries that are strictly youth driven, providing hands-on skills to graduates to improve their employability; giving students opportunities for workplace experience before graduation and guiding matriculants into career options that are based on current job market demands.

Our Values

Values are an integral pillar of any organisation’s vision. They are the blueprints for our goals and the guide for our mission. We present Empowerment, Equity and Economy- our SAYE Values.

Empowerment

We aim to give aspiring students and graduates practical tools and resources to develop entrepreneural and professional skills.

Equity

By encouraging equal opportunity, we aim to harness the power of collaboration and create shared value through synergy of skills.

Economy

Through the synergies of innovative technology and empowered young adults, valuable products and solutions can create sustainable development.

SAYE is driven by two critical areas:
1. Basic Needs Industries (BNI)
2. Innovation

Basic Needs Industries

SAYE will focus on 7 Basic Needs Industries in the first 5 years, to immediately address the unemployment crisis by putting young people into jobs.

Big companies in these industries have done very well in South Africa in the past 30 years and we aim to capture a fraction of this growth.

Youth-driven products and services have the ability to claim a sizeable share of existing industries.

“Today, more than ever; young people are confronted with unprecedented rates of unemployment and they can either reimagine the way they see the world, change their approach to employment OR do nothing, and wait in vain for the government of the day to solve their problems.”

Mike Mahlo

SAYE Founder

Head of Built Environment

Clearly what we have been doing is not working and it’s about time we start doing something different.

The high unemployment rate in South Africa can be attributed to these factors:

1. 74,000 jobs were lost between March 2023 and March 2024, whilst roughly 250,000 young people graduate annually.

2. Employability of graduates is at an all time low. Most graduates, although qualified; do not have the skills to satisfy available job requirements.

3. Lack of coordination between higher education institutions and employers. Regular evaluation of the current economy is required to determine necessary changes in study programmes and align training & skills development provided by higher education institutions to match what the job market needs.

Innovation

Innovation, by definition, means something new. Without innovation, there isn’t anything new, and without anything new, there will be no progress.

The above statement sums up South Africa’s unemployment problem. Innovation is the core reason for modern existence. Change is inevitable and creates a positive change.

SAYE will drive innovation that will be responsible for resolving collective problems in a sustainable and efficient way with technology.

These new technologies, products and services simultaneously meet a social need and lead to improved capabilities and better use of assets and resources.

Technological innovation at SAYE will be a major source of economic growth. There’s generally two ways to increase output of the economy:

1. Increase the number of inputs that go into the productive process.
2. Come up with new ways to get more output from the same number of inputs.

The latter describes the essence of innovation quite well.

The purpose of innovation is to come up with new ideas and technologies that increase productivity and generate greater output and value with the same input.