Youth employability a key issue for agri sector

Neil Palmer (CIAT) via Wikimedia Commons

"Lack of viable and sustainable youth employability solutions was a clear issue for all stakeholders," said Lara Grieve, YES business development manager.

“What was clear was that the agricultural sector is looking for a more collaborative approach to the unemployment challenge, bringing government and the commercial players in the agriculture sector together."

YES has become one of the highest impact programmes in SA, creating an average of nearly 700 work opportunities every week in the first five months.

These opportunities provide unemployed young black people, between 18 and 35 years old, the chance to enter the workforce, gain valuable skills and earn a basic wage. YES youth are equipped with smartphones to learn skills including work readiness, health and safety, financial wellness and more through the YES application. YES also enjoys a strategic partnership with LinkedIn. This means that YES youth can access one of the largest professional networks in the world to build CVs and references that put them in front of potential future employers.

YES offers attractive benefits to businesses looking to improve their broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE) scorecard rating. Qualifying businesses can improve their B-BBEE rating by one or two levels, by employing and absorbing young people from YES, in line with the practice note issued in October last year.

"Agriculture is an important sector in the South African economy," said Tashmia Ismail-Saville, YES chief executive. She drew attention to the over-concentration of youth looking for work opportunities in Gauteng who found themselves competing with highly-skilled people for entry-level jobs.

Ismail-Saville said South Africa would benefit from a decentralised workforce in which jobs are created in developing parts of the economy.

"By creating employment in the agriculture sector, salaries and skills are retained in these regions, contributing to economic development. If we create 1,000 entry-level jobs in regions like Limpopo or towns like Nelspruit, we put R42m into the local economy."