South Africa’s energy transition is about more than generating renewable electricity; it is also about ensuring that young people in affected communities can build sustainable livelihoods from the shift. The Just Energy Transition Skilling for Employment Programme (JET SEP) brings these goals together by preparing workers for emerging energy industries, helping employers find people with the right training, and ensuring that coal-dependent communities are part of the transition rather than being left behind.
The programme’s deliverables include a labour-market dashboard, feasibility studies for Skills Development Zones, and mechanisms for coordinating training providers and employers. However, these are inputs rather than proof that thousands of graduates have secured jobs.
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South Africa’s youth employment challenge provides the urgent context for JET SEP. Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the second quarter of 2026 recorded youth unemployment among people aged 15–34 at 47.4%, up from 45.8% in the previous quarter. This means that almost one in two young people in the labour force cannot find work. More alarmingly, 36.4% of South Africans aged 15–24, approximately 3.8 million people, are not in employment, education or training (NEET), representing an increase of 1.2 percentage points in a single quarter. The National Youth Development Agency warned that this reflects “an economy that is not creating enough employment opportunities” rather than merely a skills deficit.
JET SEP is backed by a US$1 million grant from the African Development Bank’s Fund for African Private Sector Assistance. The National Business Initiative (NBI) was mandated by the Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit in the Presidency to mobilise business support for Chapter 9, which addresses skills, of the Just Energy Transition Implementation Plan. Phase 1 focused on training approximately 2,500 young people and women, with a subsequent phase intended to expand into Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape. The programme aims to connect skills development with labour-market demand rather than treating training as an end in itself.
The JET ATLAS, or Anticipating Talent, Labour and Skills, is an interactive dashboard designed to forecast skills supply and demand across South Africa’s municipalities. Its usefulness depends on the reliability of its data and whether decision-makers act on the information provided. The dashboard should track job vacancies, project pipelines, training completions and employment outcomes rather than simply listing courses or forecasting demand. If regularly updated and used by training institutions and employers, it could help answer practical questions about which occupations are in demand in specific areas, the qualifications those jobs require, and which communities lack pathways into relevant work.
The Department of Higher Education and Training has endorsed the Skills Development Zones (SDZs) concept and plans to launch three zones: Nkangala on 29 October, the Northern Cape on 18 November, and the Eastern Cape in March 2027. The concept is designed to coordinate training, employers and local economic needs within defined areas. For young people, the test is whether each zone provides a clear pathway from learning to employment through recognised qualifications, practical experience, access to employers and reliable information about available jobs.
NBI Chief Executive Officer Shameela Soobramoney has set an ambition to enable 100,000 green jobs by 2030, calling for clearer signals of employer demand, better-aligned funding, more contracts for small businesses and shared measures of progress. This figure represents an ambition, not a verified forecast or a count of jobs already created. The African Development Bank estimates that South Africa needs between 120,000 and 200,000 jobs in the country by 2030, highlighting the importance of aligning skills development with labour-market demand so that young people can access emerging opportunities.
A critical caveat underpins the green-jobs narrative. Data from South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme indicates that approximately 70,000 jobs have been created since the programme’s inception, but only around 6,000 are permanent. Most employment is concentrated in construction and installation, with projects typically lasting between six months and two years. Once facilities become operational, staffing requirements decline sharply. An analysis of 65 projects recorded 130,877 construction jobs but only 16,561 permanent or full-time positions, a decline of nearly 90% between the two categories. This pattern means that JET SEP’s success cannot be measured solely by training completions; it must also be assessed by the durability of the employment created.
African Development Bank Chief Regional Power Systems Officer Anders Pedersen offered an important perspective: “Energy infrastructure projects may not generate significant direct employment, beyond the jobs created during construction and installation. Their greater employment impact is likely to come indirectly, by providing reliable electricity to businesses, enabling small enterprises to grow, improve efficiency and increase production”. This shifts the central evaluation question. Rather than counting jobs at solar plants alone, the measure should be whether reliable electricity enables agro-processing, manufacturing and services to expand in coal-affected regions such as Mpumalanga, which hosts approximately 80% of the country’s coal-fired power plants.
The programme’s initial focus on Mpumalanga reflects the province’s exposure to the coal transition. Mpumalanga accounts for approximately 80% of national coal production and 85% of coal-related employment, while an estimated 24,100 MW of coal-fired capacity is expected to be decommissioned between 2030 and 2050. More than 85,000 jobs currently depend on mining and power generation in the province. Training local young people for emerging occupations can help communities participate in the transition rather than bear its costs without sharing its opportunities. However, this depends on whether training leads to recognised qualifications and actual employment.
A credible assessment of JET SEP should regularly publish a clear set of performance indicators. These should include enrolment and completion figures, disaggregated by gender and location; the number of participants gaining recognised qualifications; the number entering energy-related jobs and remaining employed after six or twelve months; wages and job quality; the number of graduate-led businesses winning contracts and remaining operational; employer satisfaction; and the distribution of opportunities across affected communities. These measures would distinguish training activity from economic impact and help identify where adjustments are needed, whether the challenges involve course content, employer demand, transport, access to finance or the availability of projects.
JET SEP addresses an essential part of South Africa’s energy transition: ensuring that young people can prepare for and access work in a changing economy. Its grant funding, labour-market tools and proposed skills-development structures provide a foundation for coordination, but they do not, by themselves, guarantee employment.
For Africa, the broader lesson is that green investment becomes a youth employment strategy only when training is linked to real demand, qualifications are recognised, local businesses can compete, and outcomes are publicly measured. The transition will be more credible and equitable when young people in affected communities can point not only to courses completed, but also to lasting employment, growing enterprises and a meaningful role in the industries being built.
