The Department of Labour has set aside nearly R450-million from the National Skills Fund to be channelled towards skills grants for employers participating in the recruitment of young unemployed learners, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said on Saturday.
Speaking at the launch of the multimillion-rand accelerated learnership programme Letsema, he said the money was part of the government’s contribution to ensure that more unemployed young people are absorbed into the mainstream economy.
The Letsema project is co-funded by the Banking Sector Education and Training Authority (Bankseta) and the National Skills Fund to the tune of R210-million to develop 5 000 previously unemployed youths through learnerships over the next three years.
The first group of 825 learners will embark on the programme immediately.
Mdladlana also said it will ease the financial burden from the employers.
”The National Skills Development Strategy introduced a set of grants and tax breaks to compensate employers for the extra effort they are being asked to make when contributing to the solution to this problem,” he said.
”Now we are in a position where employers are being paid to open up their workplaces to young people to enable them to acquire the skills and knowledge they need to become employable or to lay the basis for self-employment.”
The National Skills Development Strategy, launched in 2001, set a target of assisting 80 000 young unemployed people into learnerships.
Mdladlana remarked: ”So how well are we doing? After the first year, by March 2002, we had achieved an early target of 3 203 learners in learnerships, and by the end of the second year by March 2003, we had achieved 26 035.” — Sapa