JOHANNESBURG - South Africa’s unemployment rate is at its highest in over a decade, with 6,7 million people now being unemployed.
Since the second quarter of 2019, the Manufacturing, Construction, and Utilities industries all experienced declines in employment, resulting in 72,000 of skilled individuals now being without jobs and without a means of supporting themselves. Enter Jobbie: a new, mobile app-driven job market that aims to reduce unemployment and poverty.
The app connects those in the job market to customers needing to get odd jobs done, matching them to nearby opportunities suited to their skills, exposing them to thousands of potential new customers and enabling them to get paid quickly and easily – all from their mobile phones.
At the same time, it saves customers from having to call around for multiple quotes and gives them access to workers they can trust since they undergo an extensive verification process, including reference checks. Once jobs are completed, workers are given reviews and ratings by customers, with positive reviews helping them to get more jobs in future.
Jobbie Co-Founder, Eugene Coetzee, shares that the app is already revolutionising the South African job market by creating close to 3000 jobs in the short time since it has been in existence, with 46 percent of these being from repeat customers. “We want to help even more people and believe that other South Africans can do so too by supporting local workers who use our app.”
Currently, the service is only available to those in the Cape Winelands, Boland and Northern Suburbs of the Western Cape, but plans are in place to expand Jobbie’s footprint in future.