“We Lost the Ladder”: Gent Discusses Why SA Produces Top Talent but Can’t Create Entry-Level Jobs
- A TikToker known as Gids posted a video on 29 August 2026 breaking down what he sees as South Africa's deepest economic contradiction
- Gids argued that while SA produces world-class professionals, the entry-level pathways that once helped ordinary people climb into the economy have all but vanished
- South Africans flooded the comments with their own theories on why jobs and opportunity remain out of reach for millions
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Source: TikTok
A content creator known as Gids posted a video on 29 August 2026 from what appeared to be a home study. He had one pointed observation about South Africa that struck a nerve with many.
His argument was simple but uncomfortable. South Africa consistently produces world-class engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and financial professionals. The country's financial system is sophisticated, its technology sector exports talent globally, and its companies operate across the continent. And yet, it carries one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.
For Gids, the contradiction is not about capability. It is about access.
SA's lost economic ladder
He pointed to a shift that unfolded over decades. Industries like manufacturing, mining and agriculture once offered something that gross domestic product figures rarely measure: a starting point. A person without a degree could enter, learn on the job, grow more productive and gradually earn more. It was not a perfect system, but it was a ladder with a first rung.
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That ladder has largely disappeared. As South Africa's economy shifted towards finance, business services and other high-skill sectors, the value created at the top grew, but the entry points at the bottom shrank. The democratic transition in 1994 opened new trade and investment opportunities, yet the structural gap between who benefits from economic growth and who is left outside it has widened.
Gids put it plainly:
"We didn't just lose jobs. We lost the ladder."
Mzansi weighs in
The video on the TikTok page drew a wave of responses, with many South Africans sharing their own diagnoses of the problem:
@Truffle Butter said:
"South Africa is such a confusing country. It's strange. It's a 3rd world country with a first world economy operating as a developed country."
@sydney_fx wrote:
"We're led by high schoolers."
@Ngwanelihle 🇿🇦 commented:
"South Africa has only one problem, greedy politicians."
@Tina/T. added:
"Maybe our current system is designed to keep a few thriving and the rest dependent on social grants."
@sss observed:
"We have a racist private sector problem. I know it sounds silly and simple."
@RETHA noted:
"The problem is we're not producing; we are consuming. They keep building malls instead of factories."
@andisiwejukuda wrote:'
"I wonder what kind of prayers we need in this country. I am just tired of our country, shame."
Watch the TikTok clip that sparked the conversation:
More on SA's job market crisis
- Briefly News recently reported that a major South African news outlet could be forced to slash its workforce dramatically, as the country's media industry faces yet another blow.
- An American farmer went viral after revealing why he cannot fill farm jobs despite offering a weekly salary that would turn heads in South Africa.
- A global car manufacturer's massive restructuring plan that could see tens of thousands of jobs disappear worldwide.
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Source: Briefly News
