Youth employment Service (YES) launches national youth entrepreneurship initiative

The Youth Employment Service (YES) has announced the launch of the YES Gamechangers Challenge (YGC), a pioneering initiative designed to close the critical gap between promising young entrepreneurs and established corporate supply chains.

While small businesses are crucial for South Africa’s economic growth and employment creation, the country faces one of the world’s highest startup failure rates, with over 86% of new ventures failing within their first year. This underscores the urgent need for targeted support mechanisms to help young entrepreneurs overcome the crucial early growth phase.

YES is a public-private partnership, having been established by agreement of the corporate sector and the Presidency in 2016, and administering a DTIC-youth empowerment incentive since 2019.  YES has become the world’s largest private sector-funded youth internship programme, with 1,898 corporate funders sponsoring over 200,000 young South African’s into their first quality work experiences. A notable by-product of YES is that thousands of talented young people establish businesses whilst in their private sector internships, with 7,100 youth (approximately 15%) of all 43,088 YES youth sponsored in 2025 doing so.   

To date, over 28,000 YES alumni have created their own businesses, with thousands having gained excellent work experience and trusted relationships with leading South African companies.

The YGC leverages this existing foundation by linking youth entrepreneurs to corporate supply chains. YGC will help young entrepreneurs overcome the market access challenges that typically plague early-stage ventures, while simultaneously assisting large corporates to boost their measurable ESG social impacts in a commercially beneficial manner.

“The YGC represents a fundamental shift in how we support young entrepreneurs in South Africa,” said YES CEO Ravi Naidoo. “This programme is demand-led. We’re not just providing capital; we’re creating pathways for sustainable growth by connecting youth entrepreneurs directly to corporate supply chains (including our almost 2,000 corporate funders), while providing the support entrepreneurs need to succeed.”

YES successfully piloted the programme in 2025 with 310 young entrepreneurs, 250 youth receiving training and a further 60 receiving financial support. YES will now increase the scale and scope of the programme in the form of the YGC, reaching 1,000 young entrepreneurs. Young entrepreneurs in the programme with confirmed contracts from corporate business can access funding of between R300,000 and R2 million.

The YGC is focused on businesses with founders under 35 years of age or who are alumni of YES work experiences.  Entities and service providers in the Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) space, with credible non-financial and financial products, are invited to explore partnerships with YES.

Applications for the first cohort of YGC participants are expected to open in the first quarter of 2026. Interested entrepreneurs can find more information and application details https://connect.yes4youth.co.za/gamechangers.