Uber alliance an ideal model

Effective job-creation projects emerge from partnerships

LULAWAY, a job-creation organisation, and ride-hailing service Uber have joined forces to create South Africa’s maiden recruitment and training centre at Century City, Andile Mkhosana, the chairperson of Lulaway, said yesterday.

The training centre will be dedicated to the registering and training of Uber’s driver-partner applicants.

“With South Africa’s unemployment rate at 26.7% and some experts projecting it will reach 27% later in the year, we need to come up with smart solutions to provide opportunities for jobless South Africans. Initiatives such as the Uber-Lulaway partnership, where two innovative companies use cutting-edge technology to drive socio-economic growth, is one way of addressing the challenge,” said Mkhosana.

He said as Lulaway handled the registration process and recruitment of the candidates it would ease up potential drivers having to register on Uber’s website or app to become driver-partners.

“We have streamlined the process for drivers to apply to become Uber driver-partners. Our applicant system is a sophisticated and tech-driven way to register and track applicants in the entrylevel entrepreneur sector. At the centre, our staff assist all applicants to register online and then go through work-readiness training to help them be successful once they start work,” he said.

Mkhosana said with the application process now centralised and standardised, the highest levels of data accuracy and efficiency were applied and there was a great demand from existing Uber driver-partners. “Our database has over 300 000 prescreened candidates listed. This means finding drivers is easy for us and we can recruit drivers when necessary. We provide the missing link between the driver and the partner and accelerate linking economic opportunities and small business seekers,” said Mkhosana.

He said the training centre in Cape Town was currently the only one in the country and the organisation aimed to help grow the country’s existing 12 000 driver-partners. Partnerships between the government, the private sector and youth employment organisations such as Lulaway can drive job creation for South Africans and build a shared vision in which unemployment is truly eradicated,” he said.

Alon Lits, the general manager for Uber sub-Saharan Africa, said the firm was excited about this partnership as drivers were the core of their business, and everyone deserved a fair chance to participate in South Africa’s economy.

“Through partnerships like these we know it will be made possible. Uber does not employ the partner-drivers, but through using the Uber app, it connects people who provide transportation services with others who need rides,” said Lits.

Mkhosana said Uber played a pivotal role in job creation and was a perfect example of what was possible through such collaborations.