Mr Price Foundation targets empowering 500,000 youth by 2035 to tackle SA’s unemployment crisis
The organisation released its FY2025 Integrated Impact Report, which highlights the strides made in youth employability, entrepreneurship and primary education.
30 September 2025 – Mr Price Foundation has announced an ambitious plan: to get 500,000 youth economically resilient by 2035. The target, revealed in its newly released FY2025 Integrated Impact Report, comes as the country faces a youth unemployment crisis, with 7.7 million young people not in employment, education or training.
READ THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY HERE
The report highlights the Foundation’s strides made in the past year through three core programmes that cover skills development for unemployed youth, entrepreneurship training and basic education.
Octavius Phukubye, Mr Price Foundation Executive Director, said targeted impact investment of R37-million in education, skills development and entrepreneurship has created pathways to sustainable livelihoods. “Unemployment is not just a social issue – it’s a systemic risk to South Africa’s future. There is a big gap between unemployment and employability, and we are helping to bridge that.”
The Foundation used a data-informed approach to provide focused and collaborative programmes that addressed critical skills gaps and enhanced school functionality. These programmes showed significant measurable impact. These include:
- Seven in 10 of the unemployed youth trained through its JumpStart Skills Development Programme secured jobs in the retail sector.
- Learners in Foundation-supported schools achieved a 20% improvement in literacy and numeracy, a decisive step in addressing South Africa’s learning crisis.
- Entrepreneurs supported by the Foundation generated R3.7 million in revenue, proving that small businesses can be engines of local growth.
“Delivering on our strategic goals in skills development, entrepreneurship, and education directly supports several goals of South Africa’s National Development Plan and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” said Phukubye.
From unemployment to opportunity creation
JumpStart has been instrumental in training candidates to be job ready. Apart from its 70% job placement rate, rehiring rates increased by 10 points to 61%, highlighting the candidates’ long-term value in the retail job market. JumpStart also serviced 78% of Mr Price Group’s entry-level vacancies.
“Our job is to build youth economic resilience by equipping young people with the skills, networks and opportunities to participate meaningfully in the economy,” said Phukubye.
For many candidates, the impact went beyond employment. Participants reported greater confidence, financial independence and improvement in their home lives.
Sandile Bhengu, an assistant store manager at Mr Price Home Galleria in Amanzimtoti, said he was able to turn his life around for the better after joining JumpStart almost a decade ago. “I applied for many jobs and training during my long six years of unemployment, but nothing came through. Then in 2016 I did JumpStart. Life has improved a lot for me.”
For Hlengiwe Mthobeni, an intern from Cape Town, JumpStart gave her the opportunity to enter the retail sector. “It equipped us with valuable skills, knowledge and networks. We are now ready to apply them in the retail environment.”
The Foundation is looking to expand the JumpStart programme by partnering with new potential employers and entering into new industries such as tourism, ICT and business process outsourcing.
Reversing the education crisis
In the past year, the Foundation’s EduRise Education Development Programme has supported over 13,000 learners and 400 educators across 21 low-income primary schools in Hammarsdale, KwaZulu-Natal.
Foundation-supported schools have seen a nearly 20% improvement in literacy and numeracy – a decisive step toward reversing South Africa’s learning crisis. “These gains ripple outward, improving not only academic results but also long-term prospects for thousands of children,” said Phukubye.
School management, long a sore point in South African education, saw a 9,5% improvement. It assessed schools throughout the year on nine elements that included leadership, parent participation and pedagogy. It also trained educators in technology and best practice and created a community of practice so that participating schools could learn from each other.
“We viewed collaboration between schools as a mechanism to exchange ideas and share management methods. At the end of the programme, we a saw a significant uptick in school functionality,” said Phukubye.
Looking ahead
In the 20 years since the Foundation’s inception in 2005, the three core programmes have impacted more than 200,000 South Africans. Now it prepares to more than double its reach within a space of 10 years. And Phukubye believes it can be achieved.
“We looked at the scale of our resources, our capabilities and the partners we have and figured we could impact twenty times the amount of young people that we had in the past year. It is about making our contribution in the best way possible,” he said.
To continue this momentum of growth, the Foundation is looking to expand its programmes by driving growth in institutional fundraising and strategic partnerships, improve technology within the organisation to remain a data-driven organisation and foster deeper engagement with communities in which it operates.
Furthermore, it wants to position itself as South Africa’s most impactful youth empowerment-focused corporate foundation.
“Candidates entered our programmes uncertain of their future and left with the confidence to shape it. We want to help as many young South Africans transform into economically resilient individuals as possible,” said Phukubye.
For more information, or to set up an interview with Mr Price Foundation Executive Director Octavius Phukubye contact:
Farzanah Asmal
Mobile: 084 582 0009
ABOUT MR PRICE FOUNDATION
Mr Price Foundation is an independently registered non-profit organisation (NPO) and public benefit organisation (PBO) with B-BBEE Level 1 status, founded in 2005 by Mr Price Group to confront two of the most pressing challenges experienced by our younger generations: high youth unemployment and unequal access to quality education. Our purpose is to create real economic opportunities for youth through catalytic investments in Skills Development, Entrepreneurship Development, and Education Development.
