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The recently-launched jobs fair by the Department of Labour’s (DoL) Public Employment Services (PES) branch had begun to pay dividends with officials saying they were beginning to receive requests from employers for the job matching of candidates from the database to see if they met the job requirements.

So far, the requests from employers came from the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces where the events took place in June and July respectively.

Labour Minister, Mildred Oliphant, made a commitment that her department would “contribute to the creation of decent employment through economic growth during the Mid-Term Expenditure Framework period and to respond to the strategic priorities of government through increased focus on decent work through public employment services - thus enhancing inspection and enforcement services to effectively monitor and enforce compliance with legislation as well as strengthen social security and boosting the institutional capacity of the department.’’

Dolly Mlaba, deputy director in PES in KwaZulu-Natal, said the provincial department of social development had responded to the campaign by indicating that it sought to engage the services of 737 contract workers.

Mzwandile Yekela, assistant director of PES in the Eastern Cape, said while Mercedes Benz SA East London plant had embarked on a recruitment and training drive through adverts, the company had also sent its specifications to PES.

The adverts, which closed on Tuesday (July 31), will give 800 applicants an opportunity to undergo skills training for a period of two months.

In addition, Mercedes Benz has entered into a partnership with the Department of Labour to select candidates from their database of job seekers.

Yekela said more employers were approaching PES to recruit through our system, with others wanting to partner with the department in several initiatives.

“Considering that the campaign only started a few weeks ago, more good times seem to be in the offing,’’ Yekela said.

The jobs fair is a sequel to the 2010/11 high level Social Dialogue Presidential Job Summit in which the Minister was tasked to organise a job summit with labour federations.

“The campaign is targeted at the unemployed youth who dropped out of school, unemployed youth with school exit certificates, unemployed graduates, workers who are under employed as well as retrenched workers,’’ Oliphant said.

She said the jobs fair aims to “empower the unemployed youth with soft skills, information and face-to-face search for placement opportunities be they further learning, self-employment, co-operatives, community work or public works programmes as well as formal employment”.

Oliphant said jobs fair presented “an ideal opportunity for work seekers to meet with their prospective employers.’’