Work Readiness Programs
We offer a range of industry-specific Work Readiness Programs as part the YEBO Project aimed at addressing Youth Unemployment with real bottom line returns for Business. Each one has been developed to equip learners with on-the-job experience and businesses with a well-prepared workforce.
The YEBO Project is an initiative by the Cannabis Private Sector in collaboration with Civil Society to alleviate Youth Unemployment whilst offering Entrepreneurial Business Sector opportunity to all South Africans.
Business can either choose to utilize the human resource in their own organisations or donate the labour to participating SMME’s and NGO’s who would benefit from the youth working in their organizations. Either option provides the youth with valuable work experience and critical and scarce skills needed to further their career opportunities.
According to Stats SA , South Africa’s unemployment rate is high for both youth and adults; however, the unemployment rate among young people aged 15–34 was 38,2%, implying that more than one in every three young people in the labour force did not have a job in the first quarter since 2018.
Some of these young people have become discouraged with the labour market and they are also not building on their skills base through education and training – they are not in employment, education or training (NEET).
The NEET rate serves as an important additional labour market indicator for young people. Of the 10,3 million persons aged 15–24 years, 32,4% (approximately 3,3 million) were not in employment, education or training – implying that close to one in three young South Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 years were disengaged with the labour market.
The NEET rate, seen in conjunction with unemployment rates over 50%, suggests that South African young people face extreme difficulties engaging with the labour market.
Certain factors such as lack of experience and length of unemployment may increase the vulnerabilities of these young people in the labour market.
The burden of unemployment is also concentrated amongst the youth as they account for 63,5% of the total number of unemployed persons. The unemployment rate amongst the youth is higher irrespective of education level. The graduate unemployment rate was 33,5% for those aged 15–24 and 10,2% among those aged 25–34 years, while the rate among adults (aged 35–64 years) was 4,7%. Just over 30% of the youth have jobs and about half of them participate in the labour market. Within the youth, those aged 15–24 years are more vulnerable in the labour market with an unemployment rate of over 52%, an absorption rate of about 12,2% and a labour force participation rate of 25,6%.
In view of the statistics above we propose two Work Readiness Programs to address the needs of both industry and the youth making sure that no young person is left behind whilst industry priority skills are addressed, and entrepreneurship encouraged.
26 Jun 2019
Reply by President Cyril Ramaphosa to the debate on the State of the Nation Address, Parliament, Cape Town
It is perhaps worth mentioning that two of the finalists for ‘CEO of the Year’ in the 2019 HR Awards are from public entities – Cameron Sello Morajane from the CCMA and Keitumetse Lebaka from the Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality, and Sport SETA.
Together with many other CEOs in the public sector, they are doing excellent work and setting high standards.
The first stream assists in accelerating the learning of those who may have previously been denied opportunities in formal training or employment. The program assists Youth to acquire a unique combination of project administration competencies, human resource management skills and business enterprise skills, in order that they may successfully administer projects within the Culture, Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sports Sectors. This Work Readiness Program is enhanced by the strategic combination of management skills and entrepreneurial attitudes, grounded in the need to augment the potential in the creative industries sector.
Youth could move into areas of project management specialization, such as community development or training. The possibility to increase competencies in particular arts genres or in the broader field of cultural studies is also available to deepen the technical knowledge of the field. This will provide access to new career paths and stimulate mobility and progression within the sectors.
26 Jun 2019
Reply by President Cyril Ramaphosa to the debate on the State of the Nation Address, Parliament, Cape Town
We are working to become an entrepreneurial state that is able to crowd-in local private sector investment in certain sectors of our economy, collaborating on the development of master plans for each one.
We see the greatest growth in jobs coming from small and medium-sized businesses, which must be incorporated more deliberately into manufacturing value chains and benefit more from public procurement.
As Minister Ntshavheni noted, we have begun a program to open up incubation centres in all 44 districts and 8 metros of our country so that we can support village and township enterprises in achieving sustainability and growth.
By using recent changes to our competition law, we will open up more opportunities for small businesses to enter new markets, contributing to a more vibrant and competitive economy.
Among the support provided to small business, government will soon be introducing blended finance for SMMEs, consisting of a combination of loans and grants.
The purpose of the second Work Readiness Program is to develop the appropriate skills and knowledge required for the establishment and development of a small to medium business venture, and address the economic, administrative and behavioral (psycho-social) barriers that contribute to success in starting and sustaining the venture.
The successful Youth will develop a sound foundation for the application of these skills and knowledge to explore a diverse range of entrepreneurial opportunities across all sectors of the economy.
This program meets the needs of society by, primarily, providing youth who are able to apply the fairly complex knowledge and skills required to be an entrepreneur and thus contribute to the economic upliftment of themselves, their community and thereby the nation as a whole.
Our programs also challenge the low market absorption of Youth with Disabilities, Rural areas and Youth at Risk by ensuring that we partner with community organisations and support groups to enable them to participate in the project. No Youth will be left behind.
The YEBO Project makes use of its customized e-learning platform that is also available as a Mobile App. The online learning has proved to be effective for working professionals with busy time schedules as well as students who cannot travel to training venues, people with disabilities, and adults who want to pursue further career advancement.
Producing study materials via offline mode like Learner Content Guides, paper, pen, and eraser, chiefly involves cutting of trees, agriculture products and fossil fuels like petroleum.
However, our Work Readiness Programs on the e-learning platform preserves the natural environment, as it involves none of the aforementioned resources. The YEBO Project is thus a project delivered in an online mode of learning to be an Eco-friendly mode with a low carbon footprint.
Whether one refers to this Epoch as The Second Machine Age, the Digital Revolution, or the 4th Industrial Revolution, technologists, economists, and academics agree – while breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, exponential increases in computing power and portability, and expanding mobile networks hold promise to make our lives easier and safer, they also threaten to leave those at the bottom and at risk, such as our Unemployed Youth, and even farther behind if not equitably distributed.
Skills like complex reasoning and creative thinking can empower individuals to take full advantage of opportunities in the digital world. Digital literacy also becomes essential and as societies continue to digitize, lacking digital skills will be like not knowing how to read and write.
As industries and sectors evolve and new jobs and vocations are created, the Youth will have to continue to learn new skills, many of which will require interpersonal skills like collaboration and communication as well as higher-order thinking and dependability which can be developed with the aid of our Work Readiness Programs.
