Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi yesterday advised young people that there is “no job that is a dirty job … there is no job that is too lowly – that is how we start out to gain experience and work our way up from the bottom”.
Speaking at a jobs fair at Bushbuckridge, he said taking an entry-level job might lead to processes of discovery of talents and skills. He told the community that paperwork was at an advanced stage to open a labour centre to bring departmental services to the community.
He said the unemployed should use the jobs fair to launch their entry or re-entry into the job market “in this constrained jobs environment”.
The gravity of the unemployment situation was exhibited by the 1 111 people who came to register as work seekers and were provided with employment counselling services during the jobs fair.
“We are hoping that with the assistance provided to work seekers to apply for various opportunities, within the coming weeks, the majority will be contacted and assisted to prepare for interviews with prospective employers in the province and beyond. We also received 1 244 applications for the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and enquiries, and where all documents were complete, payments were effected. We also received and processed 68 applications and enquiries for Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases,” Nxesi said.
The Bushbuckridge jobs fair followed similar ones held the previous year in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, North West and Limpopo. The next jobs fairs will be held in the Free State and Western Cape, respectively.
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