What are the issues facing young South African job seekers?
There are 2.8-million matriculants without jobs. Young job seekers who come from low-income or indigent backgrounds face real barriers. For example, research shows that 12% of jobs are advertised, while 88% are accessed through a social network – your community, parents, peers and so on.
The reality is that if your parents are poor or unemployed, it’s likely that you won’t be able to find formal work – you won’t know the right people, you won’t have sufficient transport money to travel in and out of the city, you won’t have internet access or the skills to use it, and you probably don’t know how to put together a CV.
Another serious obstacle is that employers are reluctant to hire first-time work-seekers. They see the matric certificate as an unpredictable measure, and first-time employees struggling to fit into the workplace.
How does Harambee deal with these issues?
We reduce barriers for young people by creating artificial social networks. We contract with employers to match them with ready and suitable first-time job seekers. We put candidates through a pre-employment screening process, and then through a two-month development programme that readies them for work.
We work on behavioural changes to make them familiar with the environments they will move into. We are not talking about temporary employment, but long-term jobs.
Who is behind this initiative?
It was started in March 2011 by investment company Yellowwoods, which also has a stake in Nando’s South Africa. Harambee then partnered with the South African Treasury’s Jobs Fund.
How successful have you been?
Initially, because of Yellowwoods, we matched candidates to jobs in insurance call centres and Nando’s. We now service five different sectors and match these young people to jobs in organisations such as Pick n Pay, Transnet and Outsurance – we work with more than 30 companies.
To date we have placed 4 500 candidates. We are committed to 10 0000 jobs by the end of 2014, and are well on track.
How likely are they to stay employed?
Research shows that if a young person keeps their job for a year, they have an 85% chance of being employed for life. We screen, assess and train – of a pool of 1 000, only 100 will have the attributes we are looking for. As a result, our job retention rates are much higher than the respective industry averages.
It's not easy work, what keeps you and your staff motivated?
Remember, we are not looking at middle or even working-class children – 50% of the youth we deal with come from families that live off social grants.
These families invest a huge amount of their income in their child’s education and then they just can’t get work.
We want to penetrate more outlying communities and prepare their youth for work. And we want business to get on board and take a risk. We have to invest in our youth.
This article forms part of a supplement paid for by Unilever. Contents and photographs were supplied and signed off by Unilever