Don’t look down on cleaning industry, youth warned

Learners who have just finished matric will be exploring their options on what to do this year.

Some will proceed to higher education institutions, while others will not make it.

There are matriculants from as far back as five years ago who are still sitting at home; they could not proceed into higher learning institutions for a number of reasons, from social to economic.

The country’s unemployment rate continues to increase, with unemployment currently at 29.1 per cent and the burden of unemployment mostly concentrated among the youth aged 15–34 years, accounting for 63,4 per cent of the total number of unemployed persons, according to Statistics South Africa.

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“There is a need to explore opportunities in which to absorb these young people into the work environment.

“The cleaning industry is one of the country’s highest employers and presents opportunities of entry into the workplace for young people,” says Cathy Viriri, a national operations director at a national cleaning company.

Viriri says greater efforts must be made to get young people more involved in this space because all they need is a steppingstone, thereafter they can work towards upskilling themselves to get into their ideal jobs.

The contract cleaning industry shows that there are over 1 500 contract cleaning companies across South Africa, employing more than 100 000 people.

“One of the biggest challenges that the country faces is that young people perceive cleaning as a low-level job and ‘uncool’, but what they need to be looking at is the prospect of what they could become within these roles, instead of where they start.

“If we can achieve that mindset shift more could be done in bringing down the high unemployment rate among young people,” says Viriri.

She explains that the minimum entry requirement to become a cleaner is a matric certificate. Thereafter, most reputable companies provide on-the-job training in line with industry practices to enable entrants to perform their duties and understand the standard operating procedures. They receive various site-specific training and where applicable, as well as health and safety training.

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“There are opportunities for growth as well in this space, including specialisation, especially in specialised industry sectors where cleaners can upskill to become a specialist cleaner like in mining, healthcare, and manufacturing.

“While working, they can explore growth, continuous learning and upskilling opportunities.

“There are also opportunities for on-the-job training and exposure to other business functions such as finance and administration, supervisory roles, quality control, and so on.

“We need to move beyond the perceptions around jobs such as cleaning, security services – the sort of jobs that young people perceive as low-level jobs – and create awareness and highlight the opportunities that exist within these jobs,” says Viriri.

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