INLSA
Some of the almost 10 000 job hunters who lined up near Durbans Curries Fountain Stadium yesterday, hoping to land one of just 30 positions in a learnership programme offered by the eThekwini Fire Department.
An estimated 10 000 job hunters lined the streets outside Durban’s Currie’s Fountain Stadium yesterday in the hope of landing one of just 30 positions in a learnership programme being offered by the eThekwini fire department.
The programme is a skills development initiative run by the municipality and contracted to the fire department. The department’s training manager, Alex Gloster, said the successful applicants would take part in a one-year course that provided them with practical and theoretical training in firefighting.
According to Stats SA, 24.9 percent of South Africans were unemployed, but a financial expert said yesterday that unofficial statistics put this number at around 40 percent.
Initiatives such as the learnership programme seek to decrease this number. However, Gloster clearly stated that the programme was not a job creation initiative. “There is no guarantee that students who complete the course will be provided with a job,” he said.
Many applicants seemed to be unaware of this fact.
“Getting the job would be a huge relief,” said mother-of-three Ziningi Ngubane. The 32-year-old woman from KwaMashu said she had no qualifications and had been job hunting since she matriculated in 2000.
Four siblings from Mariannhill, who had been standing in the queue for close to four hours, said they wished to get the job so they could contribute at home.
Gloster said the programme was aimed at equipping people from disadvantaged backgrounds with employment skills. Students who completed the course were not guaranteed a job, although 90 percent of previous students had found employment.
Some other similar initiatives have also proved highly successful, including the |Working on Fire initiative, a nationwide scheme that recruits firefighters from rural communities. They are trained in fighting veld and forest fires.
“There are 5 000 wild land firefighters in the programme, deployed at 170 bases throughout South Africa,” said the organisation’s public relations officer, Evelyn Holtzhausen.
Meanwhile the eThewkini municipality has sent out a warning to job seekers to be cautious that not all municipal jobs advertised are legitimate. The city’s spokesman, Thabo Mofokeng, said yesterday that a number of complainants had contacted the ombudsman’s office about jobs which had supposedly been advertised by the municipality.
A person claiming to be from the municipality had contacted applicants and offered to ensure them the positions if a fee was paid.
“Applicants have been charged amounts ranging from R2 000 to R6 000. The scammer usually asks that the money be paid through the money markets operated by chain stores,” said Mofokeng. “After paying, the applicants never see or hear from the scammer again.”
