City partnership programmes put young Capetonians to work
26 June 2025
The City’s work with industry growth organisations has yielded major investments and thousands of jobs for young Capetonians.
‘By funding and working closely with our 11 Special Purpose Vehicles in high-growth sectors, we have been able to identify what businesses require to grow, and the kind of skills Capetonians need – now and in the future. Through our funding of these industry-focused partners working in fields such as green tech, marine manufacturing, clothing and textile, design, ICT, and call centres, more than 15 700 jobs were created in Cape Town in 2024,’ said Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, Alderman James Vos.
The City funds these organisations to enact various skills development and small business support programmes. Recent highlights include:
Over 10, 000 new jobs created in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector between April 2024 and March 2025 through initiatives with CapeBPO
The Craft + Design Institute’s annual NEXT trade exhibition, which featured at Decorex and showed the creations of 24 local businesses that support hundreds of employees
Supporting the Cape Clothing & Textile Cluster SME Origin8 workshop, which connected small businesses with major retail clients.
Funding GreenCape, which facilitated R361 million in green economy investments in 2024.
Overall, R6,4 billion in investments made its way into Cape Town’s economy in 2024, extending even further economic opportunities to youth in the city’s communities.
‘Through such targeted interventions, there has been an effect on the wider economy in the metro that has seen 86 000 more jobs added in one year, according to StatsSA’s latest Quarterly Labour Force survey for the first quarter of 2025. This has led to a record employment level for Cape Town of 1 827 million people. This City government will continue to build on these gains for the benefit of all Capetonians – now and in generations to come,’ said Alderman Vos.
To find out more about these programmes, visit InvestCapeTown.com.
Caption: Alderman James Vos, Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Growth, with trainees at the Day of a Thousand Opportunities event at Athlone Stadium in February 2024. The programme is a collaboration between CapeBPO, the City, the Western Cape Provincial Government and private sector partners.
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Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
