NW municipality criticised for job experience requirement 

The Bojanala Platinum District Municipality in the North West province has come under sharp criticism for requesting job experience of up to eight years.

The municipality advertised 14 vacancies closing on February 12.

The cleaners’ post was the only vacancy with a lower job experience requirement. The vacancy has a one- or two-year job experience requirement. The next vacancy has two to five years of job experience, followed by a vacancy requiring four years of job experience.

The rest required five to eight or more years of experience.

The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in the Bojanala region said the advertised posts required senseless job experience, which sought to deliberately exclude young people. 

“The municipality fails to appreciate that it is biologically impossible for young people to gain experience immediately after graduating; for one to gain experience, one must be employed first. The job experience requirement is not justifiable in this extreme youth unemployment rate, and it is an insult to the deserving young people of the Bojanala region,” said regional chairperson Pako Mokoua.

He said the youth league would be left with no choice but to mobilise unemployed young people of Bojanala region to picket and occupy the streets to fight the exclusive system that undermines the call by the ANC to scrap off experience when recruiting young people.

The youth in the streets also castigated the municipality for the huge job experience requirement.

“I highly believe that the jobs advertised by Bojanala Platinum District Municipality exclude youth.  We have many young graduates who are struggling to find jobs and have been unemployed for years since they obtained their qualifications. Some of the obstacles they face are this “experience” thing that is required from them when they apply for jobs, “said Yamikana Monye of Sunrise Park.

“I think change can only be implemented if they stop requiring applicants’ experience but hire them on the basis of taking them to training. Yes, taking someone who has never worked before can come with many costs, but that is the only way our youth can gain the experience they require.”

Asanté Naidoo of Rustenburg Noord, who recently graduated from university, said she was struggling to get a job not because she did not have the skill but because she did not have the job experience needed.

She said the Bojanala Platinum District Municipality set unrealistic job experience requirements in their advertised post.

“It is cruel. How is a graduate expected to gain work experience when no institution is willing to offer them a first opportunity? she asked.

Naidoo said scrapping unnecessary job experience requirements would make it easier for the youth to get employment.

Bojanala Platinum District Municipality had not commented on the accusations.

Spokesperson Thapelo Matebesi said he was enquiring with the human resource department regarding the criteria used.