EOH Job Creation Initiative

There are five million unemployed people in South Africa. Youth make up 75% of South Africa's unemployed. EOH's view is that job creation is primarily the responsibility of business. Government's role is to create the environment and incentives for business to thrive and create jobs. Government can't shoulder the burden, and is definitely not able to employ more people. To government's credit, it has already put in place schemes and incentives to encourage business to develop business and to employ more people.

“Business in SA can't think like our counterparts in developed countries; there they have responsibility primarily to their shareholders. In SA, business must have a much broader role, which must include the wellbeing of our society. The interesting thing is that this kind of thinking is not in conflict with shareholders' interests. It is harder to run a successful business in a failing society,” says Asher Bohbot, EOH CEO.

EOH has launched the “EOH Job Creation Initiative” aimed at stimulating job creation by interacting with its customers, business partners and government.

The main areas of the EOH Job Creation Initiative are:

* The promotion of internships and training programmes
* Repatriation of jobs off-shored to other countries and the creation of jobs by offshoring services to other countries
* Working with government to mobilise business to take advantage of government incentive schemes for job creation
* Encourage business to invest more in SA, which will result in job creation. (JSE-listed companies have R600 billion in cash...).

“We estimate that we are currently offshoring between 20 000 and 25 000 jobs. Our objective for the next three years is to bring some 10 000 jobs back home. We also want to help in creating internships for 20 000 graduates and learnerships for 30 000 matriculants. EOH believes that we are short of skills, rather than short of jobs; one set of skills equals one job,” says Bohbot.

“We have a need to skill our people, starting with school leavers and graduates through learnership and internship programmes. At EOH, we have 600 learners and interns, who represent 15% of our workforce; just imagine, theoretically, if every business in SA were to do the same, it would mean the employment of hundreds of thousands of young South Africans. We believe business needs to take up the role of further developing our youth; it's good for our society and it's good for business; this is our experience at EOH. We encourage business to do the same.”

Research shows that a youth without work experience has a high chance of never finding employment; however, when a youth has some job experience, he has 80% chance of remaining employed.

“Business has a responsibility to do much more, not just for our country, but for business,” concludes Bohbot.