Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies has appealed to more companies to give young people a chance to gain work experience. Minister Davies was speaking during the award ceremony of certificates to candidates that have successfully completed the Itukise - Internship for Unemployed Graduates Programme, at the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) Campus in Pretoria today.

“Though over the years the country managed to progressively create jobs, but with a predominantly young population, young people in South Africa are still faced with a challenge of unemployment; and lack of experience contributes to this,” said Davies.
He added that if companies offered a chance to young people to gain experience, the unemployment challenge could be managed better.

“We need to expand more on skills development and training as skills development is becoming more and more critical to the recovery of South African economy. Addressing these two can yield good results in arresting the bigger problem which is unemployment,” said Davies.

Davies indicated that with the unemployment challenge that the country is facing, not everyone was going to get employment. He encouraged the graduates to consider being entrepreneurs. But he advised that, those who will opt to be businesspeople should have the knowledge of the business and the passion.

“There are business opportunities and the dti is there to support those who have a passion for business and are zealous to create jobs,” declared Davies.

the dti developed the Itukise Programme to provide unemployed graduates with an opportunity to gain work experience that will enable them to be marketable in the labour market.

The Itukise Internship Programme provides much-needed work experience through a twelve- month internship in entities receiving financial and non-financial support from the dti. The Programme enabled 1 426 interns and in-service trainees to be placed in the programme by the end of March 2015 in 169 entities across nine provinces.

The Itukise Programme was launched at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in March 2014. 

Mr Clifford Mabunda who is a Non-Destructive Testing student from Vaal University of Technology says he was honoured to have been given a chance to participate in the Itukise Programme. He added that he was now fully employed by his host, Monalebo Engineering Services and will graduate in September 2016.

Mabunda described the experience that the in-service training enabled him to gain as profound and thanked the dti and the host for the opportunity.

Issued by the Department of Trade and Industry