Hon Deputy Speaker, I am able to answer the question. The Youth Employment Service - let me start out by saying that everybody agrees that youth unemployment is a major challenge and it is to this end that we have set up an office in the Presidency to address the issue of youth unemployment. You referred to the Youth Employment Service, Yes. When the Yes programme started, I would be honest with you, we thought that we would have galloped much further than where we are. We thought that by the first year we would have had tens and tens of thousands of young people employed and given job opportunities. That has not quite honestly turned out as we thought because there have been difficulties in getting the private sector to buy into this project.
A lot more of work is now being done and it is now being mobilised much more effectively and the take up is increasing. We should have known that it would take time because what it really needs is that companies are encouraged to open up employment spaces, including public
sector companies, in their own companies where they currently employ a number of people to create spaces for young people to be employed and be brought into the world of work. Quite a number of them say we have already reached our limit and it is through encouragement that we put across to them and urge them to take more and more young people.
The last time I got the report, it was telling me that it was almost getting to 50 000 young people who have now been brought into the programme. They are looking at more young people coming in. It was hovering between 40, 45 and 50 000 and it is gathering momentum as we are moving on.
The one that we are working on in our office is going to go beyond that. We have agglomerated a number of other partners and other entities that are involved in a similar type of process. We will be able to give numbers without any doubt but the good thing about the Yes programme is that it brings in young people for a year into the world of work but we have found that almost
between 70% and 80% of those young people do finally get permanent jobs in the various companies that employ them.
These companies find that the young people are real gems and they absorb them. A number of them have been brought in and others have also been encouraged and given pathways and platforms to start their own entities and businesses. So, we are seeing a lot of benefit in this and clearly the challenge is much bigger. Everybody would like to hear that millions of young people have been brought in but it is quite difficult to create jobs. It is quite difficult for entities to create jobs and we need our economy to grow by leaps and bounds for jobs to be created. To create one job, actually it is quite expensive.
We are nudging forward; encouraging and we are also doing it through the tax incentive. There is a Youth Employment Tax Incentive process and we are finding that companies are responding to that as well. I hope that answers you and that is the honesty that I am able to give you.
Question 11 (cont):