 In South Africa, more than 50% of youth aged between 15 and 24 are currently unemployed. And the problem was exacerbated by the global economic crisis, which saw a sharp increase in the number of young people who were unemployed. And this has to do with issues around the fundamental structure of the South African economy, which is predominantly a resources economy. So this has had a negative impact on the manufacturing sector which has constrained its growth and has also created a services orientation which is skills intensive and as such does not give an opportunity for young people who might not be as skilled as older cohorts. Our research uses text data accessed via the national treasury and it allows us to understand at a micro level the characteristics of firms that are more likely to employ young people. If we understand these firms better then this gives us an opportunity to actually try and design policies that are targeted at those particular firms with the end goal of increasing youth employment. A striking finding when we use profitability as a proxy for success, we find that these firms who are very profitable are less likely to employ young people. And this is a bit of a paradox in the sense that successful firms who are probably more sustainable in terms of their operations and their existence in business are not employing young people. This then points to the need to come up with policies and interventions that would incentivize highly profitable firms and high productivity firms to encourage them to employ more young people. Whilst government has put in place policies, they're probably not targeting the right firms based on the characteristics of those firms that are more likely to employ young people. The question has to be asked as to why is this that these successful firms are not contributing to the youth unemployment problem within the country and questions have to be asked with respect to the type of policies and interventions that would actually engender a change with respect to their ability to absorb young people.