South Africa’s unemployment rate increased to 27.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2019.
In a bid to address this alarming issue, the Ekurhuleni metro hosted the Youth Unemployment Summit on June 28.
Industry panelists who addressed the young people about opportunities in their various companies or organisations was Adv Modise Koetle (City of Ekurhuleni), Dr Haiyan Song (Aberdare Cables), Chaile Makaleng (SAA) and Joseph Mudau (Gibela Rail Transport Consortium).
Key issues that were discussed were the lack of absorption of youth into the workplace, and the preparedness of the youth to acquire new skills compatible with the new workplace technology, such as robotics and artificial intelligence.
Gibela head of training and organisation development Joseph Mudau highlighted that last year January they opened a factory in Dunnottar and due to the complexity and magnitude of the project, they realised they needed to work closely with communities.
“The Ekurhuleni communities are our partners; we have held meetings in the Kwatsaduza area which have been held to create a good relationship between communities and Gibela. Our employment statistics is 50 per cent males and 50 per cent females.
“We have put money towards skills development and we encourage young people to apply for our graduate programmes to gain experience,” Mudau said.
Mudau urged young people to visit their local customer care centres and Gibela’s website, where they will find advertised opportunities.
Addressing the attendees, Human Settlements MMC Lesiba Mypa said young people are hugely affected by unemployment, poverty and structural inequality.
“Young people between the ages of 18 to 34 are the most vulnerable in the labour market. Among the graduates in this age group the unemployment rate is at 31 per cent, which is an increase of over 10 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2018.
“The growing rate of unemployment has catastrophic implications for South Africa, both economically and political.
“Much more needs to be done to eradicate the crisis of unemployment and it is for this reason that the metro has structured its budget in such a way that youth development takes centre stage.
“The metro has increased the education budget allocation to R100-million from R10-m. The R10-m could only accommodate 297 students and when we brought this R100-m into effect it accommodated 1 850 students to help them further their studies,” Mpya said.
Prominent employers within the region committed themselves to assisting in eradicating unemployment in the metro.
Nkosinathi Hlatshwayo from Daveyton said: “I have learnt so much from the summit that as young person I must empower myself by studying first then afterwards we can look for jobs or open our own companies.
“I also learnt that opportunities don’t come to you, we need to stand up and look for them.”
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