Eight years into their joint journey offering quality work experience placements to unemployed youth, YES CEO Ravi Naidoo and Nedbank’s Kershini Govender sat together to discuss successes, lessons, and the road ahead.
In 2016, 150 CEOs from leading corporates in the country, including Nedbank, approached the government with an offer to assist in addressing South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis. The Youth Unemployment Service (YES) was born and became operational in 2019 – and since then, 148,000 young people have joined the 12-month YES programme, with Nedbank alone contributing to 13,500 first time employment opportunities.
YES provides unemployed youth with opportunities to gain real-world, quality work experience and Nedbank is one of the largest contributors from the South African private sector. The initiative aligns well with the bank's purpose-led transformation strategy, and has become deeply embedded within the organisation’s broader youth empowerment strategy.
Here, Kershini Govender, Executive Head: Transformation & Strategy at Nedbank Group, and Ravi Naidoo, YES CEO, discuss the journey together so far.
What is your take on the youth unemployment situation and why does YES exist?
Ravi: Youth unemployment in South Africa is a crisis underpinned by low economic growth and by sub-optimal education and skills development. I would say only about 20% of our schools offer world-class education. Following school or higher education, too many young people do not have support to access the work experience they need to get into employment. This means that South Africa, effectively, is only playing with about 25% of its team on the field.
YES supports youth from disadvantaged households in obtaining work experience in the private sector, which funds the programme 100%. Government has also provided an incentive by which participating businesses can gain up to two levels on their B-BBEE scorecard.
We believe every crisis is also an opportunity for change. YES has grown into the biggest 12-month, full-time internship programme in the country with about 1,750 businesses now taking part. We placed 37,000 participants in 2023 alone.
What is Nedbank’s approach to the crisis and why is the bank so actively committed to YES?
Kershini: Statista closed 2023 with youth unemployment statistics that suggest 50.47% of South Africa’s young people are without work. The government cannot tackle this crisis alone and as a good corporate citizen, we do look for ways to collaborate with government and other partners. Our approach is to advance purpose-led transformation that transcends legislation to build a more equitable society and our young talent strategy is located within this. It includes a multi-pronged approach to addressing youth through learnerships, graduate programmes (such as the Quants Graduate Programme, CIB Young Analysts Graduate Programme and the Chartered Accountant Training Programme), and quality work experience programmes such as the YES programme.
Aligned to this, Nedbank has been a pioneer for YES in the banking sector and across the financial sector. We aim to balance social and commercial impacts and leverage the four capitals – namely human capital, socio-economic capital, financial capital, and leadership capital – to put our purpose into practise.
Importantly, YES is not a box ticking exercise for us. It is not about improving our B-BBEE scorecard. It is about bringing more young people into the economy as active participants, noting that more than four in ten young people are not in employment, education or training. About 88% of YES candidates come from grant-recipient households and 91% have dependents. Two-thirds so far have been women and our absorption rate – the number of YES youth who get permanent jobs after their 12-month programme – sits at 10%, which is four times the government target. In 2023, the total annual intake of the structured young talent programmes was 2,910 young individuals.
In addition to funding Nedbank’s annual YES intake, in 2023, Nedbank invested R30.5-million in bursary funding for students across the country’s public universities.
Ravi: In my view, Nedbank has chosen the hardest YES work by targeting rural placements through its implementation partners. Opportunities for permanent job placements are far more scarce in rural areas and, in this context, Nedbank’s 10% absorption rate is pretty good.
Does YES improve participants’ chances of finding long-term employment?
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Kershini: Statistically, we know that participation in YES triples a young person’s chances of finding employment, whether with their placement company, through implementation partners, becoming an entrepreneur, or elsewhere.
But finding the right candidates and giving them the right support is important to ensure YES is a genuine stepping stone for young people. When selecting YES candidates, we look at their values and learning attitude, over and above the technical requirements regarding age, race and qualifications.
We also try to bridge the living standards gap. A YES candidate might be the same calibre as a graduate from a performance perspective, but not necessarily from a living standards perspective. |
We pay a stipend above the minimum wage that covers their expenses and have also come up with other ways to provide support, for example, at Nedbank, we implement the programme through a blended learning structure that includes addressing both technical and professional capabilities, structured work readiness training, mentorship as well as on-the-job experiential training and work exposure.
The programme really delivers a high calibre of talent, and the benefits to participants go beyond improved employability. One of our previous YES candidates, a 29-year-old from Mamelodi, was placed as a service consultant in the bank and at the end of his internship was recognised as one of the CEO’s top three apprentices of the year. He told us that his achievement has turned him into a role model in his community. |
Ravi, how do you measure the macro impact of YES beyond these inspiring stories?
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Ravi: We try to get as much data as we can to match young people who show potential with the right opportunities because, for us, post-programme impact is critical. For example, we have a lot of information on YES alumni and the dynamics of youth employment, such as who does better and what programme structures work best. We are looking to use this more strategically to shape how we evolve our programme.
We have also linked our own data into the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative, accessing 4.5 million young people. |
We want to leverage this data to promote sectors where South Africa could be a global leader, if it weren’t for a shortage of skills; sectors related to the green transition, and technology and ICT, for example. When YES started, for instance, there was no green hydrogen programme in South Africa. Now, some of our YES candidates will probably be among the first employees in the green hydrogen sector. The drone sector is another example where more drone pilots are coming through the YES programme.
Our aim is to field those sectors with the best young people from social grant and disadvantaged households who would never otherwise have gotten in without this lucky break. |
What lessons has Nedbank learnt so far and how do you see the value of the programme going forward?
Kershini: We collaborate well with the YES team, constantly challenging each other on how to improve as we are on a learning journey together. Although Nedbank is proud that we have achieved four times the targeted absorption rate, together, we can look at how to increase this rate even further.
Internally, we have executives now proactively coming to us to request YES candidates. That is a sign for me that the YES programme is working and indicates a definite pull factor. It also demonstrates that YES candidates are right up there with the calibre of the young people coming through our own graduate programmes.
Success is measured on the individual side too, and I am so encouraged by YES youth. They tell us, “we are not looking for a handout, we are looking for an opportunity.” We want to make sure they increasingly get these opportunities in the specific functional areas they have requested as a platform to develop a wide range of skills and better understand different industry dynamics, which is crucial for their personal and professional growth.
For more information about how to sign up to YES as a corporate partner, please go to www.yes4youth.co.zaTo apply as a youth job seeker, visit sayouth.mobi.