South Africa July 2006 |
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| Half a mission graduates unemployed in SADispatch, (, 2006-07-03):-About half a million graduates are struggling to find jobs in South Africa, says Vivian Molla of the Transnet Foundation, this is despite the country’s major skills shortage. “In the world of work, 120000 jobs go unfilled each year, due to a lack of having the right skills,” Molla said at a summit for unemployed graduates, held in Johannesburg on Friday. She said this showed a mismatch between the skills obtained in higher education and what employers wanted from graduates. A dominant theme at the summit was the need for graduates to “re-tool” themselves and keep up with skills developments. “It’s not about ‘where’s the job’, it’s about having the right skills to keep yourself employable,” Cathy Simms of the South African Graduate Recruitment Association told graduates. She added that recent research showed that employed graduates were only staying at one company for an average of two years. Secretariat spokesperson for government’s joint initiative for priority skills acquisition (Jipsa), Nkileng Mashoai, said that it had tabled a proposal to fund graduates in “re-skilling” to help them meet employers’ requirements. “Twenty-thousand black unemployed graduates are sitting doing nothing,” said Mashoai, adding that, “Jipsa aims to place at least half of these by our next meeting in October”. She said that Jipsa planned to amalgamate the databases of graduates seeking employment, to make it easier for employers to reach them. Jipsa was launched in March by Deputy-President Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka. It aims to increase employment of graduates and to source skills such as engineering, artisans, urban and town planning and management skills. Jipsa was given an 18-month mandate in which to do this. Not having the right skills for the job was a concern for graduates attending the summit. “They (employers) tell us that we need more experience, but they won’t give us the jobs so that we can get experience,” said one unemployed graduate, Thokozile Magama. “Even if we offer to work for free, they say that we can’t. And if we have proposals for them to do our own volunteer work with their assistance, they don’t even give us the time to explain,” added another unemployed graduate Innocent Ripinga. The graduates were however all optimistic and felt that they would be employed by this time next year. “We’ve spent a lot of money on [educating graduates] …not to be employable at the end of it,” added Veronica Methebula, research manager at the Umsobomvu Youth Fund. “Why are there so many jobs being advertised, but so many unemployed graduates? ” she asked, holding up the job listings section of a daily newspaper. Mathebula said that an enterprising culture was lacking in the country, as the global entrepreneurship monitor showed that South Africans were less entrepreneurial than any other developing country. | |
South African Migration Project (SAMP) - Queen's University - http://www.queensu.ca/samp |