Looking for work as a young person is expensive. A study from 2016 reported that young people spend around R500 on data, transport and printing when looking for opportunities. According to data from The Knowledge Trust, 7 out of 10 young people missed an interview because they didn’t have data or taxi fare to attend the interview.
Being unable to attend to an interview invite because of money is really painful because you keep wondering if you would have got the job or you would have just made debts to get to an interview that you weren’t even considered.
A young person in the Youth Capital Network
In an interview with Lester Kiewit, Youth Capital’s Project Lead says that ‘currently, young people have to choose between looking for work and putting food on the table’. In 2021, Youth Capital released a brief on Transitions, outlining the three most urgent roadblocks young people face when going from a place of learning to a place of earning, namely the cost of looking for work, the lack of social capital and the information gap between employer and young hires.
Read: How we can clear the roadblocks in Transitions
In this interview on Cape Talk, Kristal is joined by the Chief Brand Officer at Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, Kuben Nair. You can contribute to Youth Capital’s survey on the cost of looking for work here.
