DURBAN – Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced that the first phase of the recruitment of 10 000 unemployed young graduates in line with the Presidential Employment Stimulus (PES) will begin in November.
Motsoaledi said applications for the first cohort of 2 000 unemployed young graduates will open today (Friday).
The department will in total recruit 10 000 unemployed young graduates who have qualifications in information technology; document, information and records management, which were obtained from tertiary institutions like universities and TVETs.
“In this month of women, and to honour the heroines of the 1956 march to the Union Buildings, we wish to announce that 60% of the intake will be of young women.”
The acquisition of the young unemployed graduates will be done in collaboration with the Department of Employment and Labour.
The department has more than 350 million civic paper records relating to birth, marriages, deaths and amendments which date back to 1895.
“(This) necessitates care and reliable systems that will bear tolerance for the digitisation purposes. These records are in all provinces and the bulk of which are in Gauteng, North West and the Western Cape.”
Motsoaledi said the project would run over a three-year period, effective from November 2022 until October 2025.
“Successful youth will be paid a stipend ranging from R5 000 for entry level positions to R9 500 for technical support level positions and R14 250 for manager level positions.”
He said this cohort would be required to sign a three-year contract linked to the duration of the project.
The department will partner with relevant stakeholders to facilitate training of these recruits.
According to Motsoaledi, the training offered will be relevant to the job performed and continuous learning and development interventions will be provided to enhance the employability of the staff.
He said this training would allow them to explore entrepreneurial opportunities beyond the project.
The minister said due to the large number to be recruited, a phased approach would be used:
- Phase 1 – will see recruitment of the first intake of 2 000 unemployed youth graduates. The adverts for this phase will be available as from tomorrow, 12 August 2022. This cohort will assume duty on 1 November 2022.
- Phase 2 – will see a further recruitment of 4 000 unemployed youth graduates. The adverts for this phase will be placed during October 2022. This cohort will assume duty in January 2023.
- Phase 3 – will see a further and last recruitment of 4 000 unemployed youth graduates. The adverts for this phase will be placed during December 2022 and January 2023. This cohort will assume duty in April 2023.
Motsoaledi said the department was also preparing the workstations and sourcing tools required to ensure that the first cohort are able to start digitising records in December 2022.
He said delays in applications were caused by officials having to manually search for original documents among these 350 million manual records.
“Once the records are digitised, Home Affairs officials will have access to them at a click of a button and would be able to finalise the applications instantly. This will obviate people having to come to the office on multiple occasions.
“Grade 12 learners will be able to spend more time studying and preparing for their exams instead of making several visits to Home Affairs offices. Reducing the number of times a person needs to visit a Home Affairs office for these services will reduce queues in our offices.”
Youth can register and apply online through the Department of Home Affairs and Department of Employment and Labour websites.
Those that do not have access to the internet can visit their closest Labour Centre of the Department of Employment and Labour.