Angong Anei – the Managing Director of Richfield Aviation Service. (Photo: Lou Nelson).

A female entrepreneur appeals to unemployed South Sudanese graduates to stop waiting for white collar jobs and start looking for manual work in the private sector to provide for their needs.

Angong Anei, Managing Director of Richfield Aviation Services said young graduate should not rely on government employment but rather venture into job creation.

She said there are many opportunities for young people in South Sudan, adding that the youth should stop idling and start becoming creative and self-employed.

“We the youth in South Sudan are faced with unemployment, not because the jobs are not available. It is the ego and the pride we have as South Sudanese,” Anei told Eye Radio.

“You might think because you have a degree to get a job, you become too much proud and may not go for a job that gives you low salary payment. So mostly this is what we are facing, you say I’m holding a degree, and, in my expectation, I want a salary of 1,500 dollars, nothing comes easily.”

“Most of us are actually lazy to get such kind of a hustling work, especially on ladies’ side, all ladies want jobs that they wake up in the morning and work in an office.”

“Like for us we are working in the office, but we didn’t make it easily, you cannot just up one day, and you want high payment salary in a very good office, you need to get to start hustle from zero to hero.”

In January 2021, the minister of information described some youth in the country as “lazy” and asked them to look for private-sector jobs rather than waiting for government institutions to employ them.

Michael Makuei claimed that young people in the country shun work because of laziness.

An assessment conducted by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization or UNESCO in 2018, showed that the majority of young people in South Sudan are unemployed.

Reports also suggest that the youth – who are under the age of 29 – make up 70 percent of the country’s population yet they are the most jobless.

According to the South Sudan State of Adolescents and Youth Report released in 2019, ninety percent of the youths do not have formal employment due to lack of vibrant private sector, opportunities in agriculture, tourism and natural resources.