Young people from other provinces, armed with relevant academic qualifications, came to Gauteng to apply for job opportunities advertised by the provincial government of South Africa’s economic hub as part of its Job Fair launched on Youth Day.
Throngs of young people queued from the early hours of Friday at Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg to apply for jobs available in different government departments in the province.
At Nasrec, which is one of the 22 walk-in centres set up around the province’s community centres and halls, thousands of youth were still queuing by 2pm to
apply for almost 7 000 permanent positions on offer.
Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi described as heart-breaking the number of young people who showed up to seek employment, saying it spoke to the high rate of unemployment in the country.
“In one site, you had almost 7 000 people queuing for the same number of posts,” said Lesufi, who described seeing so many young people lining for jobs as emotionally draining. He said unemployment among the youth was a ticking time bomb and needed to be addressed by the government and the private sector.
Dubbed the Nasi iSpani campaign and spearheaded by Lesufi – who deployed all his MECs to different centres from Katlehong, Reiger Park, Tembisa, Heidelburg to eNkangala – job seekers have until mid-July to apply for the existing batch of jobs.
Community safety MEC Faith Mazibuko, who was at the Pimville Communiy Hall, Soweto, where thousands more youngsters were at the hall even before the gates opened, said sadly a majority of the youth only had matric, which also limited the types of jobs for which they qualified.
“There was a time as a department that we took the decision that the issue of experience should not disadvantage young people, but they must be taken and given on-job training like we are doing with our crime prevention wardens,” she said.
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