The job experience trap: Why employers may be overlooking thousands of young workers - IOL

Almost six in ten unemployed young South Africans have no previous work experience, according to Statistics South Africa.

South Africa has millions of young people looking for work, but one of the first things many employers ask them to produce may be reducing their chances of getting through the door.

Almost six in ten unemployed young South Africans have no previous work experience, according to Statistics South Africa, leaving them with little to put on the CVs still widely used to screen applicants for entry-level jobs.

“Youth unemployment remains one of South Africa’s most pressing challenges,” said the agency in it’s Decade in Review of youth in the labour market, dated from the first quarter of last year.

Yet data from recruitment platform JOBJACK shows that employers are hiring thousands of people who do not have the experience they initially said they required.

Of the candidates appointed through its scoring platform, JobFIT, this year for positions advertised as requiring previous experience, 41% did not have that experience. That amounts to 3,208 people, while close to 1,000 of those appointed had no work history on their profiles at all.

“Employers might believe they cannot find the right prospects for the roles they’re advertising, yet at the same time, they are filtering out a bulk of appropriate candidates before anyone gets assessed,” says JOBJACK co-founder and CEO Heine Bellingan.

Bellingan said, “A CV tells you who has worked before and who could afford to keep applying. Neither of those tells you who is likely to do well behind a till on a busy Saturday.”

JobFIT scores each applicant against what the role demands, so a first-time job seeker lands on the same shortlist as someone with two years' experience. “Without a score, a hiring manager has a CV and a hunch,” said Bellingan.

The problem is particularly acute for young South Africans trying to get their first foothold in the labour market.

Youth unemployment increased by 1.5 percentage points to 47.4% in the second quarter of 2026, leaving five million young people unemployed, according to Stats SA's latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey.

At the same time, trade added 70,000 jobs during the quarter, more than any other industry. The sector accounts for 23.6% of youth employment, while elementary occupations and sales and services jobs together account for close to half of employed young people.

The longer-term numbers are worse. Statistics South Africa’s ten-year review shows unemployment among 15- to 34-year-olds increased from 36.9% in 2015 to 46.1% in 2025. Among those aged 15 to 24, it rose from 50.3% to 62.4%.

JOBJACK co-founder and CEO Heine Bellingan.

Research by Youth Capital and JOBJACK, based on a survey of more than 10,000 young people, put the cost of searching for work at as much as R1,469 a month, including about R700 for transport.

This means that eight in ten respondents have to choose between spending money looking for work and buying food. Bellingan argues that entry-level employers should instead assess applicants for the abilities actually required to perform a job before using previous employment as a filter.

JOBJACK's system tests characteristics including numeracy, reliability and service orientation, giving applicants a score regardless of whether they have previously been employed. Work history becomes one factor rather than the requirement determining whether someone is considered.

“Every one of those appointments was made by the employer,” says Bellingan.

The argument is not only that potentially suitable applicants miss out on work. Hiring people who prove unsuitable can be expensive for employers, particularly in industries with high staff turnover.

Remchannel research found fast-moving consumer goods, retail and manufacturing had the highest permanent labour turnover of the industries surveyed, at 16.4%, while sales and marketing recorded turnover of 28%.

The survey, based on 64 organisations, also found that only 30% of participants regularly tracked labour turnover and its associated costs. More than half did not measure some or all employee departmental costs.

Bellingan says this can leave the cost of a poor appointment hidden elsewhere in a business. “If you hire on a CV, you are hiring on a signal that is hard pressed to predict performance in a store,” he says.

“The person leaves in three months, you run the whole process again, and the cost sits in operations rather than in HR where anyone would notice it.” HR Torque stats show that replacing someone working in the FMCG sector costs 30% to 50% of their annual salary.

Remchannel MD Rene Richter says a high staff turnover rate can be detrimental, as it may lead to decreased morale, productivity and reputational damage to the brand. For someone who has never had a job, however, the consequences of relying heavily on previous experience come much earlier in the process.

“Whether someone shows up on time, handles a difficult customer and works accurately under pressure can all be measured directly, including in someone who has never been employed,” Bellingan says.

“There are millions of people who could do this work and will never be assessed for it. Reaching them does not mean lowering the bar. It means measuring the right thing.”