Local experts in artificial intelligence say unemployed graduates can still take advantage of the many opportunities available to them digitally.
Despite the high number of students graduating in various fields every year, it's not guaranteed that they will all get employed.
Artificial intelligence experts Audrey Chanakira and Dr. Asteria Pirola, however, believe that not all is lost.
Graduates can incorporate their qualifications into the fast-paced world of work, and they just need to upskill to build a digital career, they say.
"You can have an agricultural degree and then branch off into another aspect to be a social media manager for an agri-tech start-up, so that kind of navigation from the qualification that you have, upskilling and unlearning what you learned at university, is where the opportunities will come," said Chanakira.
"The opportunities, it's really in the digital space. If you can upskill to get into a freelance course somewhere, a freelance job with any other place worldwide, that will immensely set you up.," added Pirola.
The experts say there are a variety of free courses online which can assist graduates in positioning themselves."When we speak about AI, it's not only on the technical side, if you were once a UX designer, just a designer, that probably designs websites, then think along the lines of being a designer for AI, because we need to have those processes like design thinking, whereby we create systems. So look at different sectors. What is AI in agriculture, what is AI in mining, what is AI in health systems, what is AI in education?"
Chanakira says although institutions like NCRST are at the forefront of innovation, still a lot needs to be done in terms of embracing tech.
"We just need to create platforms where everybody understands what this tech means to us and to apply it appropriately in our different sectors, I talked about how can we use AI to predict accurately where the oil is, we just need an ecosystem that helps us grow in that at tech and being able to promote. I know NCRST promotes innovative ideas, I think these guys try to address unemployment by encouraging youths to be creative and innovative to have that entrepreneurial ability to create jobs for others as well."