We have our work cut out for us as far as economic recovery in the aftermath of the pandemic is concerned. This means one thing only — we need to achieve faster and higher levels of economic growth. A multipronged methodology is required in order to drive this required growth as well as increase employment and support economic inclusion in addition to social cohesion.
A vital part of the solution lies in fully exploring and motivating entrepreneurship, especially given that the formal economy is shedding – as opposed to growing jobs. Entrepreneurship could be an incredibly viable alternative to formal employment for the multitudes of unemployed people.
A Solution To Stimulating Economic Growth
One way of ramping up economic growth is for those in the ranks of the unemployed, especially the youth, to start considering entrepreneurship as an option as opposed to looking to be absorbed by the already constrained job market.
By choosing to be entrepreneurs they would be able to create wealth and employment while contributing to the growth of the economy. Given the number of people who, out of necessity, have established small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa, there is little doubt that the drive, energy and creativity among our people are all there. All that needs to be done is to harness them.
Different Types Of Entrepreneurs
It is well well-known that there is a range of various types of entrepreneurs. One accepted way of categorising these people is to split them into:
- Those who begin businesses as they want to, i.e., as they see an opportunity (opportunity-focused entrepreneurs), and
- Those who start businesses out of necessity—not necessarily because they would like to start a business but because all other acceptable alternatives for survival have been eliminated (necessity entrepreneurs).
In addition, the present COVID-19 challenge has the very real potential to create a space for universities worldwide in order to fulfil their mission of lecturing on entrepreneurship. For many years now, universities have assumed the task in terms of developing graduates with employability (or graduate) attributes which enable both lifelong and life wide learning.
A further increasing area of concern now is for the provision of Entrepreneurship Education (EE). A challenge here is that a lot of universities still rely on the traditional face-to-face lecture as a central method for delivering EE, thereby restricting the full range of possible student development from EE.
