Education and skills in tourism: Implications for youth employment in South Africa

Irma Booyens

Development Southern Africa, 2020, vol. 37, issue 5, 825-839

Abstract: The tourism sector is routinely offered as an option to grow employment in South Africa. Yet, questions need to be asked about the nature of employment in tourism, the state of education and skills training in the sector and its prospects for youth. Drawing on a national study, this paper interrogates tourism education and skills training issues in relation to youth employment and development. The findings reveal that youth in the sector find themselves in precarious employment: they typically have low-level skills, do not continue their education or training after being employed and have few career progression options. At the same time, a mismatch between the outcomes of education and skills training in tourism and the requirements of the industry come to the fore. Enhanced skills development and the creation of pathways for learning; labour market access and upward career progression are needed to advance youth in tourism.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0376835X.2020.1725447 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:deveza:v:37:y:2020:i:5:p:825-839

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CDSA20

DOI: 10.1080/0376835X.2020.1725447

Access Statistics for this article

Development Southern Africa is currently edited by Marie Kirsten

More articles in Development Southern Africa from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().