Should Government incentivize the employing of school leavers?

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

The Mercury carries an interesting article where by the writer proposes that Legislation be relaxed to encourage company's to employ school leavers or younger job applicants. He points out that as per every year matrics will have difficulty finding work and now, due to the large amount of retrenchments it will be even tougher. A company would tend to opt for the retrenched person due to experience and they will in all probability be prepared to work at a lower rate than market value.
Obviously such a situation would need some guidelines to prevent exploitation, but there is some merit to the argument. It would allow school leavers to get into the job market, whereafter their own work ethic will determine their path, but at least they are on the playing field. Company's would be encouraged to give them a chance, due to a lower wage and the flexibility, if they prove to be a lazy bum, to get rid of. It should also be an excellent teaching platform and attitude adjustment to job entrants. Small basics such as coming to work, coming to work on time etc, the foundation of this discipline could be laid early in life. First time late, hmmm - second time - hit the road and grab your jacket on the way out. Tough LOve.Perhaps the money saved(some regulation here?) would be spent on training. Perhaps a system or module similiar to the old school in-service training is worth looking at.
In turn the pressure from the bottom of a younger keener person could drive the next layer to work harder and be more productive a winner all round. Not to mention that keeping the school leavers away from un employment must be an essential first step to reducing crime.

[BBBEE_CompSpec]

To what costs to business? And who bares the main costs? If there is a stipend in the offering, I would agree.

[Dave A]

Why is business hesitant to employ new entrants to the workforce in the first place?

Is it just a lack of track record?
Is it that you will have to train into them virtually every little aspect?
Is it because it is so difficult to get a return?
Or is it because of previous bad experiences? - In which case it would be interesting to hear exactly what sort of problems people might have experienced.

[twinscythe12332]

I think the track record plays a big part, and would have been doubly so in the recession. Experience begins to come into play more than your qualifications. A business wants to know you can do something in practice, not have the theory nailed down.

Unless there is a massive gap between what the person currently knows and what the training will teach them, I don't see a problem with the training. Most businesses are able to train up people to use systems and the likes fairly quickly. And if the new employee is working at a lower price than an experienced pro...

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

I suppose this is where minumum wage and a lack of flexibility or the gaps between grades are too large. The new recruit that applies will be in the same salary as a person with 2 or 3 years experience, hence no brownie points for figuring which person you employ. By creating and allowing for entry level wages, with a scale of growth that has structure that leads to the new employee getting to Grade 1 after say 18 months could be a very successful module. Using the SETA concepts(but managed by business) and the apprentice route could be a interesting idea. Let me use a restaurant waiter as an example - Currently the minimum wage is R10-54. But let us say that the new entarnt starts at R8.50 this encourages business to take on new staff(weighing up skills vs salary saving hopefully and making balanced business decsions) it reduces their payroll (perhaps the saving of R2-04, or half, must be ploughed back into training) after 4 months the employee is evaluated with simple and measurable system and if successful moves to R9-50. After 12 months they are evaluated and then move to the R10-54.
Such a module could fast track the SETA concept(of course an evaluation needs to be completed within 2 days lets say) encourage employers to employ the new people and save money and spend money on training. By the same token a person learns early in the working career that working properly earns promotion and promotion comes from working not by right. During the evaluating stage the meployer has more scope for dismissal or obviously 2 unsuccesfful attempts at evaluation is game over. Obviously nothing is this easy and even if there is no evaluating but a lower wage with natural increments over every 4 months for 1 year and a demerit system allowing dismissal easily and quickly could be beneficial.

[angelaC1]

Hi, i've only just joined this forum and I must say your thoughts on various subjects is pretty impressive and very thought provoking.

Thanks for your insightful take on the school leavers incentives issue.
AC