Job scammers are making a small fortune from desperate job seekers.
Employment remains a key focus in Youth Month, with Multichoice continuing its partnership with the Youth Employment Service (YES) programme. Meanwhile, staff at state owned enterprise Denel will not receive salaries again and Samwu rejects a new wage proposal and plans for a national strike.
Job scams on the increase
With so many people seeking employment, scammers have realised they can make a small fortune preying on desperate job seekers by posting fake job opportunities on various websites with the intention of soliciting money and sometimes even robbing individuals who were invited to the “job interviews”.
According to Thoriso Maseng, manager of the Career Centre at North-West University, the increase in employment scams can also be attributed to unregistered employment agencies who demand money in exchange for employment.
Thoriso says the Employment Service Act states that employment agencies are not allowed to deduct money from the remuneration of an employee or ask for money to place an employee with an employer.
Hope Abrahams, information officer at the Career Centre, says job seekers need to be wary if the company does not have an online presence and/or a website where they can verify the vacant position.
She says another cause of concern is if the job advertisement has spelling or grammatical mistakes, or is typed in capital letters.
Denel unable to pay salaries – again
State arms company Denel has reportedly told its staff it would again be unable to pay their salaries, this time for June, as its liquidity position remained dire on competing priorities and declining sales.
Various divisions of the SOE have not been able to meet salary obligations for over a year, with the amounts of remuneration owed running over R500 million.
MultiChoice says YES to recruiting and training learners
MultiChoice Group has extended its partnership with the Youth Employment Service (YES) to assist with the recruitment and training of 300 learners.
This is the second year that MultiChoice has taken in a cohort of learners as part of the programme. Last year the partnership resulted in the creation of 400 new job opportunities, with an additional creation of 100 sports coaching learnerships. The two partnerships equated to a total investment of R50 million towards putting 500 South African youth to work.
As part of the programme this year the learners, who have been recruited across all nine provinces, will receive work readiness training and a stipend. Following the training each of the 300 learners will receive employment opportunities, either with MultiChoice or externally.
Samwu threatens to strike
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has threatened to embark on a nationwide strike after it failed to come to an agreement with the government and facilitators on workers’ wage demands.
Samwu, which represents more than 160,000 municipal workers, has rejected the latest proposal of workers receiving a three-year salary and wage agreement, including a four percent salary increase in the first year of the agreement and projected CPI minus one percent in the outer years of the agreement.
Samwu has previously demanded a nine percent increase – or R4,000 – for all workers.
