Note to editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Alan Winde.
Pictures can be downloaded here, here, here and here.
Today I visited a call centre training facility in Athlone which is part of the success story of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector in the Western Cape, and importantly also an employer of young people in this community and surrounds.
Rather than being located in the Cape Town CBD, this call centre and training facility has located itself close to where job seekers live, making it much easier and more affordable for them to travel to and from work every day.
This visit was a great opportunity to engage with the young employees of this business, and those gaining invaluable skills for the future, to see first-hand the difference a job, or potential job, can make in a young person’s life.
I always say that nothing stops a bullet like a job, and nothing puts food on the table like a job.
That is why only the DA in the Western Cape has a plan to create a growing, inclusive economy that creates jobs for all in the Western Cape.
And our pledge to residents of the Western Cape ahead of the 2024 election is to create 800 000 new job opportunities in the Western Cape.
Over the last five years, our efforts to grow the economy and make it easier for business means that the Western Cape has the lowest unemployment rate in South Africa – 10 percentage points lower than the national unemployment rate of 32.1%.
Looking forward, through the Western Cape Government’s “Growth For Jobs Strategy” we will:
- invest heavily in infrastructure to enable businesses;
- cut red tape that gets in the way of doing business;
- grow investor confidence;
- promote the tourism sector; and
- ensure that our agricultural sector continues to thrive as one of the major job creators in the province.
While the Western Cape’s unemployment rate is lower than other provinces, too many young people are still without a job.
That is why we are doing everything we can to ensure our young people have the best start in life and are given the best chance to access opportunities for a brighter future.
Importantly, we are investing R2.96 billion over three years in youth opportunity interventions to ensure our young people have the right skills, the right qualifications, and the right experience for jobs available now and in the future.
We recognise that a challenge to youth unemployment is access to entry-level job opportunities with minimum qualifications (matric) and little or no work experience.
That is why the DA-led Western Cape Government, together with the City of Cape Town has partnered with CapeBPO to attract investment in the sector, which is a priority sector for addressing youth unemployment.
Through additional training and skills support such as we’ve seen today, the BPO sector in the Western Cape has created just under 8 000 jobs in the last financial year, resulting in an economic impact of R2.73 billion in the Western Cape.
Initiatives like the Jobseeker Travel Voucher Programme, the ‘YearBeyond’ programme and the Masakh’iSizwe Bursary Programme, together with various skills programmes and partnerships with private sector entities, such as CapeBPO, have all created a pathway to opportunity for our youth to enter the job market and realise their potential.
The Jobseeker Travel Voucher Programme, for example, offers job seekers free bus rides to job interviews.
The ‘YearBeyond’ programme has offered quality work experience to 7 846 ‘Yeboneers’ since 2019, and is going to be ramped up so that between 3 000 and 4 000 youth will benefit every year. At least 70% of these young people will go on to further their studies or on to gainful employment.
Through the Masakh’iSizwe Bursary Programme, which is unique to the Western Cape, 865 young people have been supported to pursue their dreams of obtaining an opportunity to study in the infrastructure field at partner higher education institutions.
I am proud of the work we have done over the last five years to create jobs, especially for young people, in the Western Cape.
Due to the efforts of the DA-led Western Cape Government to create an enabling and stable environment for the private sector to create jobs, the provincial economy is growing and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Only the DA in the Western Cape has the track record and the vision to govern effectively.
There is still more work to be done and that is why we have a plan to create 800 000 new job opportunities in the Western Cape.
The Western Cape Works.
Vote to Keep the Western Cape DA.