On 15 July, the world marks World Youth Skills Day under the theme “Skills for a shared future.”
For young people, the uncomfortable truth about that future is that nobody can tell them exactly what it will require. A decade ago, coding was presented as the safest possible bet. Today, artificial intelligence is rewriting even that certainty. Green skills, digital fluency, data literacy, social-emotional capabilities – the list of “future skills” is revised almost annually, and young people are being asked to prepare for jobs that do not yet exist while watching others disappear.
In South Africa, that uncertainty is sharpened by hard realities. Youth unemployment, standing at just over 60%, remains among the highest in the world. Many young people who do find work do so in the informal economy, on short contracts or through opportunities where income is irregular. For most, the transition into adulthood is also an immediate transition into financial responsibility, with very little preparation for it.
But amid all of this, there is one skill that does not expire, cannot be automated away, and does not depend on which industry a young person eventually lands in, and that is knowing how to manage money. Whether a young South African earns a salary, sporadic income from a gig or revenue from a small business, financial literacy will shape their security more directly, and far sooner, than almost anything else on the skills list.
Consider the financial environment young earners are stepping into. The inaugural Franc Wealth Index found that 87% of financially active South Africans have less than three months’ income set aside for emergencies, while more than two-thirds could not cover even one month’s unexpected expenses. This is the reality young people inherit before they have had any opportunity to build a financial buffer of their own.
Yet the same research contains a genuinely hopeful finding, particularly for the young. The Franc Wealth Index found that financial wellbeing is influenced as much by behaviour as by income. People who consistently budget, manage debt responsibly, review their financial goals and build emergency savings generally achieve better financial outcomes, regardless of what they earn. For a young person at the start of their earning life, that is a powerful message. You do not need a high salary to build financial resilience. You need the skills, and the earlier those habits are formed, the more they compound.
So, what does that skill set look like? It ideally starts with budgeting on an unpredictable income and saving even small amounts consistently. However, it must also include credit, because for most young South Africans a first job arrives alongside a first loan application, a first store account, or a first WhatsApp message offering instant cash. Young people need to understand how credit works, how interest and fees are charged, how to compare lenders, how to protect a credit record, and, critically, how to tell a regulated loan from an illegal one.
Savings and credit are too often presented as opposites. In reality, they work together. Savings should always be the first line of defence, but young people are precisely the group that has not yet had time to build an emergency fund. When a car breaks down or a family emergency arises before that cushion exists, responsible, regulated credit can provide an important financial bridge. Credit should never replace saving, but knowing how to use it safely when it is genuinely needed is part of the same skill.
The digital world makes this knowledge more urgent, not less. Digital lending has expanded access to credit for young consumers excluded from traditional banking products, using data-driven affordability assessments rather than lengthy paperwork. But the same channels are where fraudsters and illegal lenders are most active, cloning legitimate brands and targeting social media users who post about financial stress.
A registered lender is required, under the National Credit Act and the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, to verify a borrower’s identity, check their credit record and conduct a documented affordability assessment before approving any loan. Illegal lenders, commonly known as mashonisas, skip all of this, and often charge excessive interest rates, use intimidation to recover debts and withhold bank cards or identity documents as collateral. Knowing the difference is not a nice-to-have, but rather a crucial financial survival skill.
There is a role here for schools, educational and training institutions, employers and the credit industry itself. Financial literacy, covering budgeting, the true cost of credit, recognising NCR registration and identifying the warning signs of illegal lending, sits comfortably within life-skills and entrepreneurship curricula. Responsible lenders, for their part, have an obligation to communicate clearly with first-time borrowers rather than simply processing applications.
None of this replaces the deeper structural work of creating jobs. But it addresses something within reach right now.
World Youth Skills Day reminds us that the skills list will be rewritten again, probably before this year’s matric class finishes studying. Financial literacy is the rare skill that will still be on it. In a future defined by uncertainty, giving young South Africans the confidence to manage what they earn, borrow safely when they must, and recognise exploitation before it happens may be the most durable investment we can make in a shared future.
