The number of unemployed youth globally is set to rise by 71 million in 2017, according to the International Labour Organisation's World Employment and Social Outlook report.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, the scourge of unemployment has remained endemic for decades and recent statistics suggest the country is far from making serious progress against stubbornly high levels of joblessness.
Now six years in the making, Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, a Johannesburg-based organisation has placed 35,000 young people in jobs by preparing them for work and closely matching job-seekers with employers.
Harambee's process of finding young people seeking employment and preparing them for the workplace is designed specifically around the barriers these young people face, Executive at Harambee, Lebo Nke, told HuffPost SA.
"The cost of seeking work, for example, can be over R900 a month which includes money going towards transport, data and printing among other things," Nke said. " So many jobs are posted online and people need data to access these. You need to print your CV and travel for interviews. These costs add up and become a huge barrier to finding work in the South African context," she said.
The organisation has set up a mobisite through which job-seekers can apply for Harambee's programme which covers a range of skills focused on job-seekers strengths. The data cost to apply using the mobisite, Nke said, is "less than a rand" to help lower costs for interested applicants.
"We're trying to help the people who really need it in our society. We especially look for people whose income from work, we know, will make a transformative impact in their household," Nke said.
"Often, this can include relatively quick interventions such as preparing CVs or learning how to respond in an interview to particular questions," she said. "We don't always need big, long-term interventions to get young people into work. Sometimes it can be something that takes just a day that can make all the difference in a young person's life and chances," she said.
The organisation said its annual goal is to place at least 10 000 young people in jobs for the foreseeable future.
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