Over 2,000 businesses such as Volkswagen SA, Toyota SA, Ford SA, and more have signed on to YES and committed to co-create a new, sustainable and thriving future. These powerful partnerships have already created more than 80,000 work experiences, equating to R4.5 billion injected into the economy through youth salaries alone.
YES is an effective vehicle to help drive business SA to contribute to the South African economy and boost their B-BBEE scorecards at the same time (read more here (B-BEE)). YES also looks beyond traditional B-BBEE programmes for alignment with environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies.
YES recently hosted a webinar presenting a case study on how our youth employment partner, Lulaway, contributes to fighting the youth unemployment crisis through the automotive sector. The webinar hosted industry leaders, B-BBEE partners and aggregators, as well as some of SA’s business influencers. Here’s a roundup of what was discussed.
The YES 12-month quality work experience provides youth with a CV, reference letter and certificate of completion at the end of their YES year –increasing the employment and employability of the YES Youth. Corporate partners hire youth either internally or pay for them to be hosted externally (through YES-vetted host partners), and receive up to two levels on their B-BBEE scorecard in return, or integrate into ESG/SDG strategies.
In the context of South Africa’s dire unemployment statistics and knock-on effects of the global pandemic, YES aims to address what we call the experience trap: “I can’t get a job without experience, and I can’t get experience without a job”. The experience trap makes it especially difficult for youth to break into the economy, even with skills and educational qualifications that should ordinarily help them get a foot in the door.
Research shows that experience on a CV triples the chance of a jobseeker getting a call-back in their first three months of a job search. For women, a reference letter doubles the chance of them winning the job.
Read here for more details on YES, its inception, its legislation, and its purpose.
The YES turnkey solution was designed for corporate partners who want to make an impact, but cannot place youth internally. A company can place youth in YES vetted non-profit organisations (NPOs) or small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs), using job creation in high-impact sectors (such as healthcare, conservation, digital, and education) to help fulfil a company’s ESG and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) strategies, and other corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives.
The challenge
Lulaway was approached by a delivery platform to help with the growing demand for such services - exacerbated by Covid-19 lockdowns, which pushed consumers to rely on e-commerce. The demand for this exciting sector was growing faster than what the industry had the capacity for. In a nutshell, there was a massive need for scooter riders, and lots of them, but there were very few South African scooter drivers.
All one needed to apply for this was a scooter licence and some additional high-level training. This meant that the opportunity was accessible to a much wider population, and they could hire and train at scale. What was even more enticing was that the scooter delivery drivers could earn between R10,000 – R15,000 per month, which far exceeded the entry-level paycheque of minimum wage.
However, payment for the training of scooter drivers posed a big challenge to Lulaway, the potential drivers, as well as the platform that needed them.
The solution
Corporate partners from other sectors which have specific mandates to uplift and empower communities, such as the mining sector, were helped to the obtaining of licences and training for drivers all over the country. YES helped connect Lulaway to these corporate partners looking to sponsor and enable work experiences for young South Africans. Both the big metros and remote towns benefitted from these work opportunities. Sometimes these youth would be relocated to the metros where there is great demand, enabling them to send money back home, and other times they would stay and work in their own communities.
Lulaway says they’ve already placed over 1,500 youth in these opportunities, but the demand keeps growing all over, even in remote areas, and they are struggling to keep up.
Understanding the innovation
It is vital that practical solutions are enabled to ensure that young people can contribute to the economy. This means creating and implementing programmes that meet the youth where they are and set them up for continued participation in the workforce.
YES’s development of programmes beyond B-BBEE reflects the market’s need for more innovative, integrated, holistic, and sustainable activities that can help solve multiple wicked problems at once.
Lulaway’s sustainable, collaborative, high-impact youth employment solutions which make use of YES’s turnkey solutions, has placed over 1,000 YES Youth into work opportunities like these nationwide. These YES Youth form part of some 85,000 candidates placed by Lulaway independently and through other programmes.
“The problem for local communities is that they are very remote and far away from any industry and it is very difficult to bring industries into these areas. The other issue is that a lot of these communities are not highly educated, and are very low skilled, which means there aren’t many opportunities to bring development and jobs into these areas.” Jake Willis, CEO of Lulaway
By creating jobs where the youth live through inter-sectoral collaboration with industries like the automotive sector, Lulaway has made it possible for youth in remote areas to make a decent living and directly build their communities - even without any formal tertiary qualifications or skills. These work experiences allow young people a space to excel and thrive in ways that not only uplift them as individuals but do the same for their communities.
The Lulaway x YES model shows how innovative solutions to the unemployment crisis include the creation of feasible opportunities that make it more convenient - geographically and skills-wise - for these young people to be employed. The ability to introduce opportunities in these remote and low-skilled areas has opened the door for many to make it into the South African workforce.
Read more here to find out how you can make an impact through innovative solutions.
For organisations that cannot place youth internally, there is the option to sponsor youth jobs by using our 33 YES-vetted host partners through the YES turnkey solution across South Africa.
Your business can still make an impact, but without the added burden of placing and hosting youth in your organisation. The host partners are responsible for hosting, recruiting, screening, and supervising the youth, along with facilitating absorption on behalf of the corporation.
Watch The Webinar Playback Here
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