Microsoft, Jobs Fund create youth tech employment

Launching the initiative in Newtown, Jean-Phillippe Courtois, the president of Microsoft International, said the initiative would dramatically expand Microsoft's existing skills development programmes through funding from the Jobs Fund and the company's own 4Afrika initiative.

"The Government's top priority is to get young South Africans working. As a company, we have long invested in South Africa and understand the need for us all to continue to develop solutions to this challenge. We remain committed to helping address the issue of youth unemployment, as we cannot let an entire generation of young people become long-term unemployed," said Courtois.

A breakthrough in job creation

Patrick Dlamini, chief executive of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), which administers the Jobs Fund, hailed the partnership with Microsoft as a major breakthrough in creating jobs in South Africa's IT sector.

"We've been extremely encouraged by the way the private sector has risen to the challenge of helping create jobs in South Africa. Indeed, these types of partnerships between the private and public sector will be significant contributors to the more than 100,524 new permanent jobs which our current portfolio of approved projects aims to create by 2015. These projects will also place another 56,194 unemployed people in vacant positions," said Dlamini.

The R9 billion fund was announced by President Jacob Zuma in 2011 with the aim of finding innovative solutions to South Africa's employment problem. To date, the fund has approved grant funding of more than R3.4 billion, of which more than R1.2 billion has been allocated to private sector led initiatives. This R1.2 billion has been matched by a further R1.576 billion in funding raised by the private sector.

Youth empowerment

Mteto Nyati, Microsoft South Africa's managing director, said youth unemployment was "one of the biggest threats and challenges facing South Africa today". It is estimated that 25% of all South Africans are unemployed - and of those, 70% are youth.

Nyati said that while Microsoft's Student2Business (S2B) initiative, in conjunction with government agencies, had already trained more than 6,500 unemployed graduates and placed more than 75% in permanent positions, efforts to empower the country's youth needed to be accelerated dramatically.

"South Africa is essentially a nation of young people, and the high level of youth unemployment threatens the very stability of the country. We aim to positively impact the lives of thousands of young people over the next three years, helping to close the opportunity divide by giving them access to technology and skills which will help them get on the pathway to work," said Nyati.

The new initiative will seek to triple the training outreach programmes undertaken by Microsoft in the past. The students are set to sign 12-month internship contracts under the Jobs Fund banner, with a target of having a minimum of 75% of the students employed in full-time jobs by the end of their training. Nyati said the training would focus on areas of need within the IT industry.

For further information, go to www.jobsfund.org.za or www.microsoft.com.