PODCAST: Youth Employment Service’s push to create jobs in a downturn

Creating jobs in an environment of slow economic growth is the focus in this edition of Business Day Spotlight. 

Host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Ravi Naidoo, CEO of the Youth Employment Service (YES).

Listen to the conversation:

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Yes is a private-sector funded non-profit organisation that is working to tackle youth unemployment in SA.

Founded by a group of CEOs and with backing from the presidency, the organisation says it has found opportunities for 100,000 young South Africans in the private sector in four years since its inception.

Naidoo explains that the nonprofit organisation works with businesses to place or sponsor unemployed youth in 12-month work experiences that are fully funded by the private sector, giving them “the critical experience and skills that they need to secure future employment.”

These work experiences are said to have generated R6bn in salaries — money injected into the local economy across SA.

Naidoo spends time discussing Yes’s model for finding employment; incentives for private-sector players to take on young people into their ranks; and how companies are going about creating jobs in an environment of stagnant economic growth. 

Business Day Spotlight is a TimesLIVE Production.