Home Affairs Plans to Recruit 10 000 Graduates for Digitisation Project - Everything You Need to Know

The Department of Home Affairs plans to address South Africa's youth unemployment issue by hiring 10 000 graduates over the next three years. Graduates will be tasked with getting over 300 million records digitised while gaining work experience and earning a stipend.

On Thursday, 11 August, Minister of Home Affairs Dr Aaron Motsoaledi announced the department's plan to digitise records that go as far back as the 1800s and to create job opportunities for unemployed graduates.

Motsoaledi indicated that Home Affairs will go on a recruitment drive and hire 10 000 graduates over the next three years.

The news of more job opportunities was well received by many, and Briefly News will explain everything you need to know about Home Affairs' recruitment drive.

Why is Home Affairs recruiting graduates?

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During his media briefing, Motsoaledi explained that graduates will be hired to digitise over 350 million civic records, which include birth, marriage and death certificates and amendment records, according to TimesLIVE.

The lack of digital copies of these records stifles the already-overburdened processes of Home Affairs, resulting in frustrating delays for South African applicants, according to Motsoaledi.

Motsoaledi also indicated that these delays are caused by the fact to finalise applications for unabridged certificates, Home Affairs employees have to manually search for the physical documents in a sea of 350 million records.

With graduates on board, all these records will be digitised and the application delays can be reduced in future, according to Business Insider.

Home Affairs has also stated that the jobs available to graduates are not internship programmes, but work opportunities to address the rampant unemployment of young people.

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Who qualifies for the Home Affairs graduate programme?

Home Affairs is looking for information technology graduates with a background in document, information and records management.

Anyone who graduated from a university, university of technology or TVET college is eligible to apply.

Home Affairs will also consider applicants with disabilities and the job opportunities are available to all young people across South Africa. The department added that 60% of the recruits will be young women.

Successful candidates will sign a three-year contract for the duration of the digitisation project.

How to apply for the Home Affairs graduate programme, and how much will you earn?

The Department of Home Affairs has set aside R2.4 billion for the digitisation project. Motsoaledi explained that 90% of the fund will be used to pay graduates their stipends and 10% will be used to purchase necessary equipment.

Entry-level graduates will be paid a stipend between R5 000 and R9 500 for technical support, according to TimesLIVE. Managerial positions will receive a salary of R14 950.

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Optimistic graduates can apply on the Home Affairs Department websites, labour.gov.za and dha.gov.za. Through walk-ins, the department also allows graduates to submit their applications and CVs at their nearest labour centre.

How many recruitment phases will the Home Affairs graduate programme have?

The Department of Home Affairs will be hiring graduates in three phases, and the first phase kicked off on Friday, 12 August with 2 000 posts currently available. Those successful in the first phase will start working on 1 November.

Phase two job advertisements will be published in October and 4 000 posts will be made available. Successful applicants will begin work in January 2023.

Phase three will kick off between December 2022 and January 2023 and the last 4 000 positions will be filled.

Successful applicants will start work in April 2023, according to BusinessTech. In addition, the Department of Home Affairs will place job advertisements on social media platforms, radio, television and labour centres.

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South Africa’s unemployment rate improves, declines slightly to 34.5% in 1st quarter, 7.9 million unemployed

Briefly News previously reported that the country’s rate of unemployment saw a slight improvement in the first quarter of the year compared to the fourth quarter of last year.

However, 7.9 million people remain jobless in the country. Statistics SA released its findings related to the unemployment rate on Monday 30 May. During the fourth quarter of 2021, the unemployment rate stood at 35.3%, which was a record high, the figure decreased to 34.5% in 2022.

The expanded unemployment rate also saw a decline from 46.2% to 45.5%. According to Fin24, the expanded rate includes citizens who had given up on searching for work.

Source: Briefly News