Technology services firm EOH CEO Asher Bohbot has challenged all companies in South Africa to create employment opportunities for youths.

EOH has trained 600 people a year for the past two years and permanently employed about 450 of these trainees a year, creating sustainable, necessary employment for more than 900 people within two years.

EOH posted interim results this month which reflected that revenue increased by 38.4% to R3.308-billion and profits increased by 49.4% to R224-million. Headline earnings a share rose by 33.9% to 229.6c and cash increased by 47.5% to R785-million. The company’s staff complement com- prises more than 7 000 employees in South Africa, the UK and 15 African countries.

“If every company in South Africa provided employment opportunities for youths, the problem of youth unemployment will be drastically reduced. We have demonstrated for two consecutive years that there are significant and economically relevant skills latent in South Africa,” he notes.

Significant skills are dormant in South Africa, even at the highly technical spectrum, such as information technology skills, which the country is failing to bring to the economy, Bohbot emphasises.

Youths face the problem of not being able to gain employ- ment without having prior employment experience. There-fore, even temporary learnership and internship programmes can have a significant effect by boosting the availability of skilled workers and helping to grow the economy, he says.

Government should also do more to encourage business to incorporate youths into the economy, he adds.

“If everyone in the country can match our efforts to create employment opportunities, even in internship and learnership positions, then they can grow like us, as there is a well-documented demand for skills in the country. EOH is expanding rapidly, which confirms that technology is only as good as the people behind it.”

The interdependence of people, business and the community is inseparable and a company is fundamentally a social structure – a successful company cannot operate in an ailing society, emphasises Bohbot.

“We have concentrated our efforts on ensuring that our social initiatives are sustainable and useful in society. Our corporate social investment initiatives, therefore, focus on education, particularly in the fields of mathematics and science and we have intensified our efforts in our EOH youth job-creation initiative,” he says.

Meanwhile, EOH will pursue organic growth and appropriate strategic acquisitions, which are typically small acquisitions that result in skilled people from those companies joining EOH.