The Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) is implemented in schools across the country, helping to reduce youth unemployment and helping teachers cope with their day-to-day duties in the classroom.
It is for this reason that National Treasury to allocate R25.5 billion over four financial years of the four phases of the youth initiative to be implemented.
Contracts of the participants of the third phase of this initiative ended on 31 August 2022, exiting this initiative with certificates of participation and other achievements that will help them when accessing opportunities in the future.
The department has since opened applications for its recruits for the fourth phase of the youth initiative on 28 September 2022. It has been a week since applications for the fourth phase of PYEI, the department can report that 7.4 million applications have been received from 867 864 unique applicants.
In a statement, the department’s spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga has shared:
In these applications, the department has confirmed that there are 769 schools in the country that have received less than 20 applications and 14 schools that have so far received zero applications.
According to reports, the schools with zero applications were found to be in the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape and Western Cape.
It is said that the department will be focusing on non-fee paying schools in the country when placing the next participants of this initiative. The department has also shared that it aims to create more than one million job opportunities.
As part of the qualifying criteria, the department requires applicants to be unemployed and be aged between 18 and 34. The initiative’s Project Manager, Lala Maje has also emphasised that the department is looking for young people who did not participate in the previous three phases.
Applications are done on the SAYouth.mobi data-free website. This is also to ensure that there is transparency and objectivity.
