HURU and Lulaway announce partnership to reduce barriers to employment for South African youth

HURU, an online portal that simplifies the process of verifying criminal records and identities, has announced a partnership with youth employment engine, Lulaway. This partnership will see Lulaway becoming one of HURU’s National Capture Locations where job seekers will have the opportunity to capture their fingerprints upon application for jobs, allowing Lulaway the ability to easily verify their information for potential employees – ultimately speeding up the job placement process.

 

HURU is the first of its kind to innovate a digital consent verification system in South Africa, making it a completely paperless system from start to finish – ideal for the youth of today.  Fingerprints are cross-referenced with the SAPS and the Department of Home Affairs, and using ultra-secure digital consent, fingerprints can be used to verify a criminal and identity status simply by registering on HURU.co.za.

 

Daniel Shefer, founder of HURU, notes that Lulaway’s commitment to helping South African youth secure jobs, and with over 240 job centres located across all nine provinces in South Africa, they are the perfect partner. “Lulaway’s job centres act as employment hubs in communities across South Africa and also offer a user-friendly platform for candidates to access job opportunities close to where they live. Lulaway receives over 10,000 job applications every month and thanks to the HURU partnership, these job seekers will be able to have their fingerprints captured at any job centre making it easier for potential employers to perform the mandatory criminal record checks needed for all job applicants,” says Shefer.

 

The unemployment situation, particularly among the youth in South Africa, is in a dire state. Recent research reported on by Lulaway notes that 3.3-million youth aged between 15 and 24 are not in employment, education or training (NEET), and nine million people overall are unemployed.

 

Four key barriers to employment for South African youth are:

  • Geographic Locations – Unemployed youth are limited to the areas they are able to find and apply for jobs as transport costs to get to areas with higher employment rates are increasing at an alarming rate.
  • Lack of Support – Unemployed youth are unaware of what support is available to them, and where they can get it.
  • Insufficient Experience and Skills – Employers often compare the skills and experience of youth with that of the older workforce and feel it is more costly to hire younger employees.
  • Inability to Match Labour with Jobs – There is a disconnect in the labour matching system so even if candidates have the skills, employers cannot find them and neither can candidates find employers.

 

Lulaway is already playing a big part to help drive positive change by reducing barriers to employment for South African youth. The partnership with HURU will increase the amount of support available to unemployed youth as well as assist in reducing other barriers even further.

 

To date, Lulaway has:

  • Touched the lives of 300,000 South African job seekers
  • Sent 55,000 job seekers for job interviews
  • Placed over 30,000 people in jobs
  • Established over 200 network partner job centers
  • A national footprint in 9 provinces
  • Facilitated the distribution of over R150 million in internship funding to the youth

 

“Lulaway is committed to reducing barriers to employment for South African youth. We are constantly improving our advanced tech platform for employers and job seekers. Through this partnership with HURU, job seekers can have their fingerprints captured at a Lulaway job centre while they create detailed profiles, complete basic assessments and receive a full color professional looking CV at a location that is close to where they live. This end-to-end solution will speed up the process and be attractive to employers needing immediate sourcing solutions. Our employers often work on very tight deadlines and need to make placements within days. Making fingerprint capturing and criminal record verifications easily accessible to the youth through Lulaway job centres, close to their community, means employers will have a larger, verified talent pool and can place more qualified members of our youth into the right roles for them. We are excited about this partnership as we believe in the power of technology on positive socioeconomic change,” says Jake Willis, CEO of Lulaway.

 

HURU will begin rolling out in Lulaway job centres from November 2018, adding at least 10 locations before the end of the year, with an aggressive roll out strategy set for 2019. The ultimate goal is to do a complete integration between HURU and the Lulaway database. This value-add feature will mean that a ‘verified by HURU’ flag will appear on the candidate’s CV and be visible to employers, eliminating their need to do the check and reducing the time-to-hire.

 

Connect with HURU and Lulaway online

 

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