Artificial intelligence is making it harder for unemployed young South Africans to land their first tech jobs, a technology executive warned in Johannesburg on Thursday.
Kuben Nair, chief technology officer at the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, said AI lets experienced workers take on more tasks. He said this also raises the bar for young people trying to enter the industry.
“The big challenge now is what happens to the young people who are not in the workforce that are trying to get in,” Nair said.
He spoke at the CollectiveXChange 2026 event. About 300 leaders from government, business, finance and the skills sector met there. They made commitments to get 500,000 young South Africans into in-demand digital skills by 2034.
Nair said AI had not yet opened doors for inexperienced people as widely as some had expected. He said some of the basic work that once helped newcomers gain experience was now being automated.
He said companies should rethink how they hire and train young people. This includes asking whether a coding or computer science degree should always be needed for some tech roles.
Nair also said many training programmes were built for computers and use data-heavy videos. “For young people who rely on mobile phones and cannot afford data, these programmes remain difficult to access,” he said.
Mkhokheli Ndebele, 23, is an intern developer at WeThinkCode. He grew up in Braamfischerville, Soweto, and told TimesLIVE he had little contact with technology until he got into a software engineering programme.
“After matric I struggled to get proper work. I worked at (clothing store) Ackermans because I wanted to get into the technology space but I didn’t know which ropes to pull,” he said.
Ndebele said he became interested in software after seeing games on a smartphone and wondering how to build something similar. He founded PocketCoded, a set of apps that let users learn and build software on their phones. The apps work offline, without a laptop or internet connection.
“While I wait for a stable job, I knew I had to build something of my own that will help sharpen my skills with how technology has advanced,” he said.
Bethusile Mafumana, 32, started work as a data science graduate at Eltron Digital after leaving accounting. She is from Libode, a village outside Mthatha.
She completed an accounting degree at Nelson Mandela University but struggled to find work in that field. She worked in client services and call centres before going back to study computer science.
Mafumana now runs her own company, Betana. It builds websites, business apps and automation tools for teams. “It opened a lot of opportunities for me. And with AI taking over, it has become useful in incorporating it in my business as well,” she said.
CollectiveXChange CEO Evan Johns said South Africa had close to 120,000 unfilled vacancies because employers could not find people with the right skills.
He said digital skills were needed across the economy, including farming and the motor industry. Skills in demand include software development, data analytics, data science and cybersecurity, he said.
Johns said training should match what employers need and give young people a chance to gain work experience. He said employers should be more open to hiring people based on their ability to solve problems and use technology, not only on formal degrees.
Source: this article is based on reporting by TimesLIVE. Image: TimesLIVE. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice Technology desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Werner Jacobs covers technology for Tzaneen Voice. Werner reports on mobile networks, data prices, internet access, smartphones, apps, AI, cybersecurity and South African tech companies. Each story explains what a new product, price change or policy means for ordinary users in South Africa.