Stressful task of finding a job in SA

AFTER overcoming obstacles such as time management, classwork, homesickness, and mental and emotional strain, recent university graduates are faced with a new daunting task: entering the labour market.

According to Statistics SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey, the percentage of young persons aged 15-24 years who were not in employment, education, or training (Neet) was 31.1% – a 1.4% increase from Q4 in 2017 to Q4 in 2018.

Employed, Riaz Sader, a UCT graduate with a Bachelors of Business Science specialising in finance, found it difficult to find local employment opportunities.

“The youth opportunities are not in abundance, which was a big reason for my move to Joburg.

“Cape Town just simply does not provide job opportunities equivalent to the level of effort that the students put in,” Sader wrote.

“The hardest part about finding a job in this country is that the opportunities are limited and very seldom do you find a job opportunity that is aligned to what you want to do as to where your passion lies.”

Robert James graduated from UCT in 2017 with a BSc in chemical engineering with honours.

For the past year, he has been pursuing a variety of plans, such as postgraduate studies and job opportunities both locally and internationally, with varying success.

“Job searching can be incredibly tough at times, especially if you’re looking within a field in which you don’t necessarily have all the skills.

“It can be pretty disheartening for a student to study for several years and be met with struggles to find employment,” he said.

Looking to get into data science, he took his job search overseas.

“I think the hardest part is that the ‘HR machine’ isn’t well-optimised in South Africa.

“I’ve found it easier and more convenient to find work in the UK.

“A student could likely spend several hours completing a single application in SA, whereas the initial applications overseas take several minutes at most,” he said.

The results of this survey said for both time periods, the Neet rate was higher for females when compared to their male counterparts.

Ntaoleng Mokotini, a UCT BCom, specialising in computer science and information systems graduate, felt the gender disparity early on.

“I struggled as a black woman in tech, being in a male-dominated class and environment where there was constant doubt about your competence and whether you deserved a role in tech,” she said.

According to the 2018 graduate exit survey administered by the UCT Careers Service, more graduates are turning toward entrepreneurial endeavours.

Ayanda Africa, a recent graduate with a BSc in applied biology, human anatomy, and physiology, has seen the trend take place via social media.

“I feel like the youth is very innovative. I frequent Twitter so I have seen a lot of unconventional ways of the youth trying to get themselves employed. I think we’re running away from normalised streams of income, where people are pursuing their talents and interests as means to earn a living,” she said.

This is the route recent graduate, Nuzhah Jacobs, decided to take.

Jacobs, who majored in marketing at UCT, is working for herself as a digital content creator in the beauty sphere full-time.

With 17.5k and 2k followers on Instagram and YouTube respectively, she plans to use these platforms to create her own business in the near future.

UCT’s 2019 graduation exit survey is set to be released next week.