President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on businesses to assist in harnessing the energies, talent, skills and experience of young people to grow the economy.
In his letter to the nation on Monday, Ramaphosa focussed on the achievements of government’s school assistant programme which has since 2020 seen approximately 600 000 young people placed at schools across the country to support teachers in the classroom.
The programme also provides maintenance, security, food garden production and other upkeep activities.
Ramaphosa says the 10-month placement initiative has provided a monthly stipend to participants as well as accredited training across several disciplines, ranging from digital literacy to basic bookkeeping, from child and youth care to bricklaying, plastering and plumbing.
President Ramaphosa has called on business to take advantage of the Employment Tax Incentive to hire more young people and create learnerships.
He says they can use the SAYouth.mobi platform to publicise opportunities that exist in their companies.
In the video below, President Ramaphosa urges youth to take advantage of 4IR opportunities:
The platform, which brings together several government departments and entities such as the National Youth Development Agency, the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator and Jobs Fund currently has 2.9 million young people registered on it.
Ramaphosa has also called on community-based organisations and places of learning to be part of building a new future for the youth.
