Job creation remains a critical challenge for South Africa. Despite strong achievements in macro-economic stability and increases in employment, the growing labour force has outstripped the capacity of the labour market to absorb young people. The state of the country’s skills base, rendered inadequate by the legacy of apartheid, contributes to sustained inequalities in the labour market. This impacts on the capacity of the economy to grow in an increasingly competitive global environment. In this context, Vocational Education and Training (VET) is viewed as an important mechanism for building the necessary intermediate technical skills to support key sectors of the economy. However, international experience demonstrates that expanding the VET system and developing human capital more broadly will not in itself lead to increased job creation. The alignment of skills supply and demand can only be achieved through a well-developed understanding of the factors that support or inhibit the transition of young people into the labour market. This study investigates these factors through the lens of social capital theory. Through tracing 1,532 individuals who graduated from FET Colleges in the Gauteng province in 1999, the study interrogates the role of bonding and bridging social capital in supporting the transition into colleges and from colleges into the labour market. The findings show support for the three hypotheses: 1) Poor socio-economic family contexts appear to offer little information from which to make effective educational choices. Young people generally make such choices on the basis of perceived long-term value of post-school education rather than short-term economic considerations. 2) FET colleges are ineffective agents of bridging social capital and therefore have limited impact on the rate of employment, in particular the rate of\ud
relevant employment. 3) Personal networks are critical, but in impoverished environments are ineffective for finding meaningful employment on initial entry into the labour market. Therefore, restricted social networks have the potential to further entrench social inequality. The study contributes to a greater understanding of the challenges facing youth in navigating through the transition from school to work and the implications for FET policy in pressurising colleges to create access to effective social networks for their students and thereby meaningfully contribute to job creation