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A big driver for local companies to get involved in the Youth Employment Service (YES) is the opportunity to claim BEE benefits for offering one year of employment to people between the ages of 18 to 35 years.
YES is a business-led initiative that tries to address youth unemployment.
There are an estimated 17 million youth in the country, of which about 35% or about 6 million are unemployed.
A calculator on the YES website can be used to see how many young people a company needs to employ for a year to achieve a better BEE status.
YES CEO Tashmia Ismail-Saville told City Press that at present half of the companies registered with YES were there to gain BEE points.
“If you do the requisite numbers – some companies will place the youth in their own infrastructure, whether it be factories or retail outlets. Some companies say they ‘want to be part of this – we understand youth unemployment – but let us place youth into NGOs, small and medium-sized enterprises and other enterprises that build capacity’.
“Sometimes it is a corporate social investment project.
“We have just closed a deal with Deutsche Bank for early childhood development (ECD) teacher trainers. The bank will pay for their jobs. It has been supporting ECD teachers as a long-term project.
“YES is a business-led scheme but the trade and industry department [BEE points] benefit is a collaboration with government. To design that we have a presidential committee made up of multiple departments.
“The more youth we place – that’s how we build revenue. We charge large companies [with an annual turnover of R50 million-plus].
“Medium and small companies don’t pay. The large company money is used to subsidise the smaller companies.
“NGO and grant funding will subsidise our revenue model.”
Ismail-Saville said the goal initially was to have 1 million young people each receive a year of work experience within about three years, but realistically it was more likely to be five years.
Achieving the goal in even five years looks a big ask. Since the YES scheme was officially launched in March this year by President Cyril Ramaphosa, about 2 000 young people have been placed in jobs.
“Right now we have 5 000 jobs registered on the system [but not all the jobs have been filled yet] and more than 240 companies officially registered with YES. From mid-January 2019, we have 18 000 jobs committed,” Ismail-Saville said this week during a tour of the YES hub in Tembisa in Gauteng by World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.
Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom and Development Bank of SA CEO Patrick Dlamini accompanied Jim on the tour.
Youth included in YES jobs earn a minimum paid stipend of R3 500 a month for those doing a full day of work.
The World Bank has been helping YES via technical agreements and funding research.
The YES Tembisa hub is a first, the flagship.
“It is very close to Gauteng so we can bring funders out here.
“We have Nedbank, Afgri, Google, Sanlam, Microsoft, Unilever and Investec – all contributing to this hub.”
The hub cost a “couple of million”, Ismail-Saville said.
Another hub is planned for Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga.
There is funding for another 13 hubs and the ultimate aim is to grow these hubs to 100.
“Research tells us that if youth have a CV and a reference letter, it triples the likelihood of a call back. For women it doubles the likelihood of a job in three months.
“There is a massive ‘derisking’ effect that happens with a CV and reference letter.
“The Investec guys [in the hub] may graduate soon because they started earlier. They have 1 250 youth that they have employed ... many in Mpumalanga in Sabi Sands and Londolozi.
“We imagine that a large percentage of the youths will be absorbed into the job market. They are future-looking jobs. They are in ecotourism, they are in building. Some are going to start their own enterprises.”
The trade and industry department issued a YES practice note in October in the Government Gazette in terms of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act and that has resulted in the scheme being put into full operation.
“BBBEE recognition will only be awarded to YES measured entities that have registered with the YES non-profit company,” the note said.
“YES measured entities will be able to claim up to 50% of their skills development spend on informal training…against the skills development scorecard for YES eligible employees only.”
Ismail-Saville said that the idea for the YES came from the CEO Initiative during the time when Pravin Gordhan was into his second tenure as finance minster and there was a move to avoid the country losing its investment grade credit rating
Ismail-Saville said was hired to develop and run YES in March 2017.
YES had a staff of 22 as well as consultants that the scheme used, she added.
