The recruitment drive, open from 27 September until 3 October 2021, aims to provide 287,000 unemployed young people employment and training opportunities in the education sector.

Youth between the ages of 18 and 35, who are currently neither in education/ training nor receiving any form of a government grant and young people with disabilities and women, are eligible and encouraged to apply, the department said.

Candidates selected for placement will have an opportunity to receive training on various skills that will equip them for future employment opportunities.

All successful candidates will be placed in schools for five months, from 1 November 2021 to 31 March 2022, for the following available opportunities:

• Education assistant – Curriculum
• Education assistant – ICT/e-Cadres
• Education assistant – Reading Champions
• General School assistant – Child & Youth Care Worker
• General School assistant – Handyman (no matric required)
• General School assistant – Sports and Enrichment Agent (no matric required)

To qualify as an education assistant, the department said you must have passed matric English, while an NQF Level 4, 6 and 7 qualification certificate will be an added advantage.

However, for placement as a general school assistant, a matric certificate is not required for infrastructure support and sports and enrichment agents, although trade certificates will be an added advantage.

“To work in the education environment, you must have a good ability to work with people and within groups, have good communication skills, be a good listener, and have an interest in academics,” the department said.

“To apply for a placement, young people are urged to visit sayouth.mobi to create a profile and submit their application. No walk-ins will be allowed in schools due to Covid-19 restrictions. Applicants must submit their application online.”

How to apply 

Should you receive notice that you have been selected for shortlisting, you will be required to prepare the following documents:

• Curriculum Vitae (CV);
• Testimonials (former school, a local chief, church leader, etc.);
• Police clearance certificates;
• Affidavit/declaration by the applicant stating they have no criminal record while awaiting the police clearance;
• Certified qualifications such as Matric, (where applicable: NQF Level 4 qualification certificate, for education assistant applicants with NQF level 6 and 7 an added advantage);
• Certified copy of identity document/ passport.

As in phase one, the department said there would be a strong emphasis on training participants to add to their skills set and setting them up for improved employment prospects.

Accessing the BEEI employment opportunities can be done through this website. This is a zero-rate mobisite that can be accessed through a mobile phone. Candidates without access to the internet can call 0800 727272, which is a toll-free number.

e-Cadres

One of the new initiatives is the introduction of ‘e-Cadres’ who will effectively work as IT support in classrooms.

“The e-Cadres will add value in the classroom by assisting teachers and learners with troubleshooting of ICT equipment and uploading educational content on learners’ and teachers’ devices,” the department said.

“The need for this transformation is critical and timely, given that the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the need to move towards a digital future, where lessons can be provided virtually.

“When learners and teachers receive the right support for digital learning, the response is often noticeable. e-Cadres will be deployed in all public schools.”

Staff Writer 27 September 2021

The Act and how it will influence the questions that will be asked will mainly be dependent on two key factors, he said:

• Are interviews seen as the processing of personal information of prospective employees or ‘data subjects’ as the Act refers to it?
• Is the data collected from prospective job seekers deserving of protection in terms of the Act?

“The second question is perhaps the easier one to answer. The Act’s purpose is indeed to protect personal information, and considering that questions and answers typically exchanged in interview processes are definitely personal information – such as race, sex, views, gender, and education – the interviewee is surely deserving of the protection afforded by the Act,” said de Villiers.

The answer to the first question – whether interview processes can be seen as the processing of personal information – can be found in the definition of processing as stated in the Act, which includes a multitude of acts typically performed in interviews such as collection, receipt, recording, storage, transmission, destroying of information, etc., he said.

What this means in practice 

Broadly put, all state and private bodies, who interview employees, will have to comply with the provisions of the POPI Act during interview proceedings, said de Villiers.

“In practice, this means that the interviewer will need to obtain informed consent from the interviewee when accepting, collecting, processing potential job seekers’ personal information.

“The hurdle to jump over is the concept of informed consent. That means that bodies will have to declare how they are to process the personal information obtained, and obtain consent to process it (in those terms) and no other.”

Human resources specialists, recruiters and public- and private bodies – and any party who could be seen to interfere with the protection of Personal Information – now have a heavy burden on their shoulders during an interview or job placement proceedings and may get sued if found non-compliant, face the hefty fines from the regulator itself, or even imprisonment, de Villiers said.

In terms of section 10 of the Act, employers are urged to obtain only strictly relevant information. They will, at all times, remain accountable to the job seeker to explain what they have done with the data.

“Data on race, for example, can only be processed if essential to identify someone or when it is strictly relevant.”

“Generally, data collected should at all times be purpose-specific. It is advisable that access to records of interview proceedings should be severely limited only to the essential staff on completion of the interview proceedings and be retained solely for purposes of employment equity audits by the Department of Labour.

“So no more CVs lying around in the office or on a database, for an unforeseeable period, for everyone to see,” he said.

In the consent form that interviewees sign, it will be prudent to inform them of this duty to retain records, said de Villiers. He said that the interviewer would have to obtain consent before the information is processed by (or shared with) any further person.

“All role players should ensure integrity, confidentiality and well-positioned organisational measures to be in place, especially if the information is to travel across borders.

“Aspects on which interviewers should tread carefully when it comes to the job seeker include aspects on religious and philosophical beliefs, race, ethnic origin, trade union membership, political persuasion, health or sexual orientation, criminal behaviour, biometric information, etc.,” de Villiers said.

originally posted on BusinessTech

The City of Tshwane will recruit 5,095 expanded public works programme (EPWP) workers starting in November, using an electronic lottery system – or electronic random draw.

Executive mayor Randall Williams said that the city is introducing the new Democratic Alliance-created system to promote transparency in its hiring process.

“The system works independently without any influence by electronically selecting applicants from our EPWP database. Currently, the database has over 150,000 registered jobseekers,” he said.

“This is fundamentally different to how the process occurred before 2016 when the recruitment was politically driven without any form of transparency or fairness.”

Williams said that registration to the system remains open for jobseekers between 18 and 60, with applicants required to include a certified copy of their ID and proof of residence on their registration form.

The programme provides an avenue for labour absorption and income transfers to poor households in the short to medium term.

It typically provides work opportunities in four sectors, namely infrastructure, non-State, environment and culture and social, by:

• Increasing the labour intensity of government-funded infrastructure projects;
• Creating work opportunities through the Non-Profit Organisation programme and Community Work Programme;
• Creating work opportunities in public environment and culture programmes; and
• Creating work opportunities in public social programmes.

Financial services group Discovery recently announced it would institute a mandatory vaccination policy for its 12,950 employees and all suppliers who work in its building effective from 1 January 2022.

The company maintained it was legally and morally obligated to implement the policy and that its approach was in line with major multinationals, including Google, Facebook, Netflix, Walmart, and Disney.

Truter said that although mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations in the workplace in South Africa may be justified in certain circumstances, it remains a highly emotive matter.

“The most controversial issue in relation to mandatory vaccination appears to be the extent to which employees may rely on their constitutional rights not to be vaccinated, in particular freedom of religion, belief, or opinion.”

“Constitutional rights are not absolute, though. In some cases, these rights clearly need to yield to the rights of others,”

“An employer has a legal obligation to ensure the health and safety of its employees, as well as members of the public with whom its employees interact.”

However, Truter warned that the pre-dismissal considerations that apply in the case of mandatory vaccinations appear to be significantly more onerous than the considerations that apply in most other situations where the termination of employment is considered.

He provided a list of guidelines that employers should follow before dismissing an employee for refusing to take a Covid-19 vaccination.

10 steps before considering dismissal for vaccine refusal

1. Perform a Covid-19 risk assessment

This will determine whether a mandatory vaccination policy is necessary and to identify employees who work in situations where:

• The risk of transmission is high due to the nature of their work.
• The risk for severe Covid-19 or death is high due to an employee’s age or comorbidities.

2. Develop a vaccination plan or adjust your existing Covid-19 plan

3. Educate employees about vaccines and provide them with more information

Relevant information can be found in the vaccine FAQ section of the NICD’s website.

4. Assist employees with registering for vaccination on the EVDS portal

Registering on the health department’s Electronic Vaccination Database System (EVDS) allow South Africans to book a time and select the vaccination site where they would like to receive their vaccine.

5. Give employees paid time off to be vaccinated

If you implement a mandatory vaccination policy, you may not withhold pay or force employees to take leave without pay.

6. Place employees who suffer from vaccine side effects on paid leave

Employees who suffer from side effects after taking the vaccine should be given sick leave. If their sick leave is exhausted, they may qualify for further paid time off.

7. Keep employees informed on vaccination issues

This includes notifying them about:

• The obligation to be vaccinated and by what date.
• The right to refuse to be vaccinated on constitutional or medical grounds.
• The opportunity to consult with a health and safety representative, worker representative or trade union official.

8. Counsel employees who refuse to be vaccinated on any constitutional grounds

Talk to employees and allow them to seek guidance from a health and safety representative if requested. Refer the employee for further medical evaluation if they refuse to be vaccinated based on a medical condition.

9. Explore alternative arrangements

Dismissal should only be a last resort. The employer should attempt to accommodate the employee in a position where they do not require the vaccine.

Possible options to consider include letting the employee:

• Work off-site
• Work from home
• Work in isolation (at the workplace)
• Work outside normal working hours
• Work while wearing an N95 mask

10. Follow the correct procedure for dismissals

If all other options have been exhausted, Truter advised against disciplinary action. Instead, he said to deal with the dismissal as one of “operational requirements” or “incapacity”.

The informal sector refers to small or unregistered production activities. Informal employment means the hiring of workers in a casual and unregistered way without regard for labour legislation and rights.

It is estimated that there are over one million domestic household workers in South Africa, representing as much as 20% of employed African women.

This makes domestic employment one of the largest employment sectors in the country.

Another subgroup within the informal employment sector is household gardeners, about whom very little research has been done.

This neglect led us to examine the sector in 12 towns and cities of varying size in the Eastern Cape, one of South Africa’s largest and poorest provinces.

We set out to determine the numbers of informally employed gardeners, the wage levels and the overall economic value of the sector.

We found that nationally there are just under one million informally employed gardeners, that individually most are paid at or below the minimum wage, but the sector as a whole sees annual wage transfers of between R10 billion and R13.5 billion.

The number of gardeners and wage levels

Our primary focus was to determine the number of informally employed gardeners in each of the towns, who they were and the wages paid to them. Then we aggregated that up to calculate the value of the sector.

Across the 12 towns, 58% of middle- to high-income households informally employed a gardener.

In 11 of the 12 towns, between one-half and just above two-thirds of middle- to high-income households did so; the exception was Peddie, where only 30% employed a gardener.

Summed across the 12 towns, there were about 13,200 informally employed gardeners.

The mean daily cash wage earned was R112, which was 7% below the national minimum wage for domestic workers (R120 or per day in 2019) and 30% below the R160 per day for other sectors.

Overall, 45% of the employing households paid below R120 per day, 19% paid R120 per day, 32% paid between R121 and R160 per day, and 3% paid more than R160 per day.

Unexpectedly, larger centres did not pay higher daily wages.

Most of the gardeners were employed by one or more households for two or three days a week. About 60% of the gardeners worked for a single employer and had no other work.

Most (70%) valued their current position, and appreciated that it had improved their wellbeing.

However, the majority also lamented that the wage rates were insufficient to satisfactorily meet several basic needs such as food, education and transport costs.

Nearly all (98%) of the gardeners were male, middle-aged (an average of 46 years old) and with limited formal education (an average of 5.8 years of schooling).

One-third had never previously held any long-term employment. The mean length of employment as a gardener was 6.5 years, ranging between a few months to 26 years.

The most common means of finding a gardening job was through directly approaching a homeowner and offering one’s services (39%), or through the recommendations of existing or previous employers to other households (32%).

Scaling up the numbers from our research we estimated that there were about 965,000 people employed as informal gardeners in the country.

This is well above both the mining (384,000) and agricultural (810,000) sectors and similar to the transport sector (943,000) nationally.

If half of the informally employed gardeners work for more than one household then the national number is closer to 724,000.

These numbers translate into an annual wage transfer of R10.1 billion to R13.5 billion nationally for the lower and higher estimated number of gardeners.

This makes it abundantly clear that the gardening sector follows that of other informal sectors in contributing significantly to local employment, albeit at survivalist levels.

Just surviving

Scholars differentiate between two survivalist informal sector occupations.

In one, participants just survive and have few skills or prospects to move beyond that.

The other is made up of micro-enterprises, which have family or a few employees and have the potential to grow.

With most of the gardeners having low formal education, limited work experience outside the sector and being middle-aged, prospects for employment in the formal sector are limited for most.

It is unlikely that many will be able to scale up to become independent contractors.

Yet, in the context of high unemployment nationally and low formal skills, most of them valued the gardening job that they held despite the low pay, an indicator of a poverty trap situation.

This requires appropriate policy and regulatory interventions to help move the sector beyond just a survivalist mode.

A start would be measured to increase awareness among employing households of the need to pay gardeners at, or preferably above, the minimum wage (since 45% currently don’t), in line with regulations for the domestic worker sector.

A second intervention could be support for training and establishment as small contractors.

• Written by Charlie Shackleton, professor and research chair in Interdisciplinary Science in Land and Natural Resource Use for Sustainable Livelihoods at Rhodes University.
• This article first appeared in the Conversation. You can read the original here. 

A severe shortage of truck drivers in the US has led to more companies bringing in drivers from abroad.

In 2019, the US was already short 60,000 drivers, according to the American Trucking Association. According to Bob Costello, the group’s chief economist, that number is anticipated to grow to 100,000 by 2023.

Craig Fuller, the founder and chief executive of the data and information firm Freightwave, told Bloomberg that companies are increasingly turning to drivers from South Africa and Canada as workers from those countries can often speak English, making it easier to get the necessary license.

This was echoed by Arnoux Mare, chief executive of Innovative Solutions Group, who told RSG that this was not a new trend and that South Africans have been in demand for several years.

Mare’s company specialises in outsourcing work functions including hiring logistics and drivers for companies and he has also employed local drivers to drive for international companies.

He added that the trend was not limited to the US, with South Africans also sought after in Europe in countries such as England.

While Mare could not give an exact figure on how many truck drivers are in demand, he said that there was a clear shortage and demand.

He added that these drivers would still be required to do their licences and learn the various road rules, so South Africans should not expect to start working straight away.

He further cautioned that immigration to the US is in high demand from other countries, so South Africans should be cautious of just quitting their jobs here and moving over without having a plan in place.

He added that drivers should also be cautious of companies promising ‘R1 million a year’ as these stories can often be too good to be true. This is not necessarily a normal salary or what one would actually earn.

How much truck drivers earn in the US

Data sourced from the salary website Indeed shows that the average annual base salary for a truck driver in the US is $67,256 – almost exactly R1 million.

This is obviously highly dependent on the qualifications and experience of the driver, with drivers earning substantially more depending on the company they work for and the number of years they have driven.

This aligns closely with comparative salary data from salary website Talent, with an average annual base salary of $67,600 (R1,005,833).

Entry-level positions start at $51,676 (R768,897) per year, while most experienced workers make up to $96,183 (R1.4 million) per year.

How much truck drivers earn in South Africa 

Data sourced from salary website Indeed shows that the base salary for a truck driver is R10,728 per month in South Africa – or roughly R130,000 a year.

Comparative salary data from Payscale shows that the average pay is slightly lower at R98,225 a year, or R8,185 a month.

The Department of Labour also published minimum wages for wholesale and retail truck drivers in 2020.

This was the finding of an investigation into the compensation of employees at South Africa’s largest IT and telecommunications companies.

For this analysis, MyBroadband looked at the latest employee information disclosed in the financial reports of JSE-listed ICT companies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

While state-owned enterprises typically report their average employee salaries, JSE-listed companies do not.

For JSE-listed companies, we divided employee remuneration, including salaries and bonuses, by the number of employees.

The latest salary statistics showed that state-owned enterprises typically pay higher average salaries than their private counterparts.

There are two exceptions — Vodacom and MultiChoice. They pay the highest average salaries at R914,682 and R841,064 per year, respectively.

The average salary at South Africa’s top IT and telecoms companies is over R635,000 per year or R52,900 per month.

This is well above South Africa’s official average salary of R21,455 per month and much higher than the average take-home pay as measured by BankServ of R14,883.

It is no surprise that employees of ICT companies in South Africa are earning good salaries.

There is a shortage of engineering, IT, and telecommunications skills in South Africa, which means companies have to pay well to attract and retain these skills.

IT and telecoms companies also tend to employ a higher ratio of highly qualified and skilled professionals, which increases the average salary in a company.

The table below provides an overview of the number of employees and their average salaries at South Africa’s SOEs and top tech companies.

Eskom’s interim results for the six months ended 30 September 2020 were annualised to ensure as fair a comparison as possible.

In a statement on Wednesday (11 August), Treasury said that even before the advent of Covid-19, the government recognised that many members may need to access part of their savings in unexpected circumstances.

“It is for this reason that the minister of finance noted in the 2020 Medium Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) and 2021 budget that consideration is being given to allow limited pre‐retirement withdrawals from retirement funds under certain conditions, provided that this is accompanied by mandatory preservation upon resignation from a job.”

Treasury said the government has now been engaging with trade unions, retirement funds, regulators and other stakeholders to discuss how to increase savings and improve preservation and allow limited withdrawals, without creating liquidity and investment risks.

“Any consideration for early access will require legislative and fund-rule amendments because the current law and policy prohibits any pre-retirement access to retirement savings unless an employee resigns or is retrenched.

“It is expected that the earliest that any changes would become effective for a new withdrawal mechanism is 2022.

“However, the withdrawal process will not cover the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), as it is not regulated under the Pension Fund Act, and hence no Covid-related withdrawals will be allowed.”

Two-bucket system

Retirement funds are primarily designed to encourage individuals to save while working to finance consumption later during retirement, Treasury said.

It added that government provides generous tax deductions and benefits to encourage all working people to save and preserve more for their retirement.

“Redesigning the retirement system to allow for limited withdrawals with mandatory preservation is complex and requires thorough consultations. The government has been working on a more structured two-bucket system that will enable the restructuring of future contributions,” it said.

One bucket is to be preserved until retirement, and the second bucket will allow for pre-retirement access during emergencies or extraordinary circumstances.

While these measures cover pension and provident funds, a harmonised approach on withdrawals is also being considered for retirement annuities, Treasury said.

“Implementing any new system allowing limited withdrawals with preservation will take time because in addition to prior consultation, legislative and fund rule amendments have to be done and fund administrators will also have to change their systems.

“Design work and consultation are ongoing, further announcements and the public release of the proposed measures for public comment and consideration will be made shortly, before or at the 2021 MTBPS.

“It is envisaged that the necessary legislative amendments will be introduced in parliament thereafter.”

Treasury said that members of retirement funds are advised not to contact their retirement funds to withdraw funds – unless retiring, resigning or retrenched – as these retirement funds are legally not empowered to allow pre-retirement withdrawals until the law is enacted.

“It is expected that any changes to the law would only become effective next year at the earliest, and some of the medium-term provisions may take even longer to take effect. The government remains committed to encouraging South Africans to save more, both for their retirement and for shorter periods before retirement.”