The importance of that first job

As a parent of a couple of kids in their late teens, the one thing which keeps me awake at night is how they are going to break into the world of work. Parking the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to one side for the moment, the world of work *IS* changing and I fundamentally believe that if you have the opportunity to give a young person work experience, you need to find ways to do it.?

We recently posted a job advert on Linkedin for a Junior Marketing Generalist [we are still searching for the right person for Decusatio] with a bit of a brand background – we were inundated with applications. In the first 24 hours, I received 75 via LinkedIn and further 25 via Facebook. We were pretty explicit in our description that it was an entry-level job but at least 10% of the applications came from people who had worked in one of the big 4 banks and had more than 7 years work experience.?

We do a lot of work with the Youth Employment Service (YES) and have some insights into the challenges that young South Africans face and I thought I would try and detail some of them below and hopefully stimulate some interesting debate.?

Some brutal stats?

For the most part, youth in South Africa get their work experience from initiatives such as YES or via learnerships. In other words, youth job creation initiatives are being driven by legislation versus what the economy needs / can absorb.?

YES itself is aligned with the National Minimum Wage which is currently R3760 on the 40-hour work week. Stipends on Learnerships are slightly lower but there is some top-up when milestones / qualifications are achieved … but for the purposes of this, let’s assume the average graduate with a B.Comm degree going into the marketplace is going to earn R4000 per month through these initiatives.?

That is R181 per working day which includes feeding yourself 3 times and getting yourself to and from work… it’s a tough ask.?

I’ll take it one step further: The definition of a YES youth is somebody 18 – 35… One of the biggest challenges you see is that youth don’t break into the job market early on and they get stuck in this experience trap: Companies want work experience but they won’t give youth a chance (so they don’t get work experience)?

Lastly you need to remember that absorption requirements on these initiatives are very low. For a YES program, you are required to absorb (offer permanent employment) to 2.5% of your total cohort. IE if you create 100 jobs, you are required to see permanent employment for just 3 of them.?

The end point is as important as the opportunity?

A lot of job creation initiatives in South Africa see youth placed in the likes of teaching or community healthcare worker type roles. There is no question that these roles have their place but in terms of permanent employment / absorption opportunities, these roles are very limiting.

Creating 300?000 teaching assistant jobs for 3 months is great but when they are switched off – 99% of those youth are once again unemployed.?

As unpopular as it may be, it would have a far greater impact if those jobs had been created in the call-centre / BPO sectors as a far greater percentage would be retained.?

Businesses are not geared to employ youth

Technology giant SalesForce has an interesting stat. They reckon it takes about 8 months – irrespective of experience – before a staff member starts to contribute to the bottom line. Ok they are seeing it through a Sales / BD lens but anyone who has employed somebody will probably agree that this stat isn’t far off.?

If you are the employer and you are faced with the choice of hiring a completely green youth for R4000 per month, or you can hire somebody with 5 – 10 years of work experience for R4000 per month …. Logically which way are you going to go??

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great grad programs out there but the problem is that you are taking the cream of the crop and giving them a structured program to help them fit into a bank or insurer.?

The youth who need the hand-holding around things like soft-skills and technology are simply being thrown in the deep-end and there are no resources to give them actual work-hardening.?

The importance of social capital

As a white middle-class South African with 20 years work experience – much of which was in field of financial journalism – I was able to build up a network of business owners.?

That social capital allows me to put my kids forward for work opportunities to help them deepen their CVs?

The vast majority of young South Africans are constantly playing catch-up and trying to get their heads around the world of work that they don’t get exposed to the broader industry or given a structured method in which to grow their social capital (This is somewhere that the grad programs excel)?

If you are looking after, employing or mentoring young people then make a real effort to have them focus on this part of the equation. Whether it is the Reference letter, focused LinkedIn sessions or exposure to virtual / live events – this social capital is the game-changer to drive absorption and change their career trajectories.?

The micro-franchise model is interesting

It doesn’t make sense to just touch on the negative, I think we also need to look at some of the things which have worked.?

We have found some really good success stories looking at the micro-franchise model where youth are trained to take over small businesses including beauty spas, sanitary pad manufacturing businesses, technology training centres, accounting franchises and even an exciting project we have seen with young creatives (photographers, artists??etc.)??

People often talk about how SMEs will be the job engine of the future for youth but the reality is that small businesses don’t have the pockets to carry youth who are still learning work hardening. Unless the businesses are systematised (EG in the franchise model), it is very difficult for the youth to actually get enough skills to get their foot in the door .

Closing:?

Hopefully this post has given you some food for thought. If I can leave you with 2 messages:?

1.?????If you run a business and you have the opportunity to give young people early-stage work experience, you can change lives.??There is so much talent out there but we need to be patient enough to let it develop and we as business owners have a responsibility to invest in this space.??

2.?????If your business is looking at building some youth employment initiatives then let’s compare notes and see what we can come up with.?

Would love your feedback.?

Marc Ashton is a former financial journalist and now CEO of Decusatio, a South African based consulting firm helping entrepreneurs tackle the twin challenges of Access to Finance and Access to Markets.