The False Economy Our Young People Are Watching: Why Ethics Must Become Part of Work Readiness
June is Youth Month in South Africa.
This year carries particular weight. It is 50 years since the Soweto Uprising of 1976 — a defining moment in our history, when young people refused to accept that the world handed to them was the only world possible.
They were not passive observers of history. They challenged it.
As we remember their courage, I find myself reflecting on the future we are handing to young people today.
What kind of country are they watching us build?
What are they learning from our workplaces, institutions, businesses, schools, homes and leadership spaces?
And what are we teaching them about the meaning of success?
These questions became more pressing for me when I read recent reports that the South African Social Security Agency had dismissed 43 officials implicated in fraud, theft, corruption and serious maladministration during the 2025/2026 financial year. The dismissals followed internal disciplinary processes, with further cases still pending.
It matters that action was taken. Consequence management matters. Institutions must investigate wrongdoing, hold people accountable and strengthen the systems intended to protect public resources.
But I could not read the story only as a report about internal disciplinary action.
I kept thinking about the people on the other side of that system.
SASSA exists to serve some of the most vulnerable people in our country: pensioners, children, people with disabilities and households that rely on social grants to survive.
When ethical failure takes root inside an organisation like this, the consequences do not remain inside the organisation.
They reach the grandmother waiting for support.
They reach the parent trying to feed a household.
They reach the child whose daily wellbeing depends on that grant.
They reach the person standing in a queue, trusting that a public institution will do what it exists to do.
And they reach our young people, who are watching.
Young People Are Not Waiting Somewhere in the Future
We often speak about young people as though they are a distant generation waiting somewhere ahead of us.
They are not.
According to Statistics South Africa, young people between the ages of 15 and 34 account for 21 million people — almost half of South Africa’s working-age population.
The labour-market picture is sobering. In the first quarter of 2026, 5.6 million young people were employed, 4.7 million were unemployed and 10.6 million were outside the labour force. More than four in ten young people between the ages of 15 and 34 were not in employment, education or training.
These are not merely numbers.
They represent millions of people trying to imagine a viable future.
They represent young people studying, applying, waiting, working, searching for opportunity, starting small businesses, supporting families and trying to decide whether effort will ultimately be rewarded.
They also represent young people forming their understanding of what success really means.
And they are doing so in a country where unethical conduct has carried a visible cost.
We have felt that cost in failing infrastructure, interrupted services, procurement scandals, under-resourced schools, crowded hospitals, lost opportunities and weakened public trust.
Corruption is often described as a hidden tax.
But that tax is not paid only in money.
It is paid in time.
It is paid in opportunity.
It is paid in dignity.
It is paid in trust.
Young people pay that tax too.
They pay it when they queue for water before school because infrastructure has failed.
They pay it when they sit in overcrowded classrooms without the resources that should have been there.
They pay it when transport systems fail and make access to school, college, work or interviews harder than it should be.
They pay it when a graduate sends out application after application and quietly begins to wonder whether merit still matters.
They pay it when a young entrepreneur begins to believe that access, connections and favours matter more than excellence, value and hard work.
The False Economy
I have previously described corruption as intergenerational theft: every corner cut today becomes a debt our children inherit tomorrow.
That remains true.
But Youth Month asks us to go further.
Corruption does not only steal from the future. It shapes the present. It teaches. It forms. It models.
When looting, bribery, tender manipulation and abuse of access become visible pathways to wealth and influence, young people are not only witnessing wrongdoing.
They are watching a false economy being presented as success.
They see people becoming wealthy without creating value.
They see access used as currency.
They see public money treated as private opportunity.
They see systems that appear untrustworthy and leaders who appear unaccountable.
And then we ask them to believe in honesty, discipline, service and hard work.
That contradiction matters.
Young people do not develop their understanding of success in isolation. They learn from what society rewards, what adults excuse and whether our stated values match our daily choices.
If unethical success is celebrated, copied or quietly tolerated, it begins to distort ambition.
It teaches the next generation to measure success against the wrong standard.
This is not an argument against ambition. South Africa needs ambitious young people. We need young entrepreneurs, skilled professionals, innovators, educators, builders, public servants and leaders.
But ambition must be connected to value.
Success must be connected to contribution.
Opportunity must be connected to responsibility.
Without that, we risk preparing young people to compete inside the same broken systems we say we want to change.
Opportunity Is Essential — But It Is Not Enough
Youth Month rightly focuses our attention on economic inclusion.
Young people urgently need access to quality education, employment pathways, skills development, mentorship, networks, entrepreneurial opportunities and meaningful support.
We should not minimise that urgency.
Ethics is not a substitute for jobs. Character development cannot replace economic opportunity. A young person cannot build a future on inspirational words alone.
But the reverse is also true.
Opportunity without values is not enough.
Skills without character can become dangerous.
Access without accountability can become abuse.
Qualifications without integrity do not build trustworthy institutions.
A person can be skilled and still be dishonest.
A person can be qualified and still exploit a position of trust.
A person can be employed and still harm the very people they are meant to serve.
This is why ethics must become part of work readiness.
When we prepare young people for the workplace, we tend to focus on practical capabilities: communication, digital literacy, punctuality, teamwork, problem-solving and technical competence.
These skills matter.
But true work readiness must include the ability to handle responsibility honestly, respect public and private resources, resist shortcuts, speak up when something is wrong, treat people fairly and understand that every role carries consequences for real people.
South Africa does not only need more people in jobs.
South Africa needs people who can be trusted with jobs.
Workplaces Are Formative Spaces
The responsibility does not rest only with young people.
It is easy for adults to tell young people to work hard, act honestly and lead with integrity.
The harder question is whether the environments we have created consistently demonstrate those values.
What happens when a young person enters their first workplace?
They learn the written rules. But they also learn the unwritten ones.
They notice whether managers take responsibility or shift blame.
They notice whether reports are honest or quietly adjusted.
They notice whether company resources are protected or casually misused.
They notice whether people are treated fairly when pressure rises.
They notice whether speaking up is welcomed or punished.
They notice whether values are lived or merely framed on a wall.
Every organisation has an ethical culture, whether it has intentionally developed one or allowed one to form by default.
That culture teaches.
It shapes behaviour. It signals what is acceptable. It influences what people become willing to tolerate and, eventually, what they become willing to do.
This means organisations carry a responsibility that extends beyond compliance.
They are not only places of employment.
They are formative spaces.
They help shape the people who enter them — including the next generation of leaders.
Building Something Different
If we want a different future, we must be willing to build it deliberately.
At Unashamedly Ethical, we believe ethics must be practical.
It must be taught, modelled and lived.
Through TRIBE, we invest in young people by helping them explore character, values, ethical leadership and responsible entrepreneurship in ways that connect to the real pressures they face.
Through Transformational Leadership On Demand, we support leaders to reflect not only on what they do, but on who they are becoming and how their influence shapes the people around them.
Through Ethics in Action, we assist organisations to move ethics from intention to implementation: identifying risks, strengthening accountability and building cultures where integrity is actively protected.
These are different pathways, but they are connected by one belief:
A more ethical society is not built through slogans.
It is built through people, decisions and cultures.
It is built when a young person chooses honesty even when dishonesty appears easier.
It is built when a leader takes responsibility rather than shifting blame.
It is built when an organisation refuses to leave ethics to chance.
It is built when we stop measuring success only by what someone has achieved and begin asking how it was achieved, who was affected and what kind of person they became along the way.
The Future Is Watching
This Youth Month, as South Africa remembers the courage of the young people of 1976, we should do more than look back.
We should ask what kind of example we are setting now.
Young people are watching what we reward.
They are watching what we excuse.
They are watching what we tolerate when nobody is paying attention.
They are watching how we use influence, how we handle responsibility and whether our values remain intact when integrity costs us something.
We cannot ask young people to build an ethical future while modelling compromise in the present.
We cannot tell them that honesty matters while celebrating success at any cost.
We cannot speak about leadership without speaking about character.
Our challenge is not only to prepare young people to enter the workplace.
It is to prepare them to strengthen it.
And our responsibility is not only to open doors of opportunity.
It is to build workplaces, institutions and communities worthy of the young people who walk through those doors.
Let us make ethics part of work readiness.
Let us raise a generation that can be trusted with responsibility.
And let us become the examples they deserve to follow.
Take a stand. Sign the Unashamedly Ethical Commitment. Support our work in youth development, leadership transformation and organisational ethics implementation. Help us build a culture where ethics is actively lived — in our homes, schools, workplaces and leadership spaces.
Yours in ethics,
Ilene Power