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Job Creation

Transnet to create over 5 000 jobs

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:02

State owned freight group Transnet projects stated that it will create over 5 000 jobs in the next five years.

Currently, the entity employs 55 519 people, and estimates that the number will increase to 61 520 by 2016.

Transnet says this projected increase can be directly attributed to government's New Growth Path.

Between April and May, the enterprise made nearly 800 appointments in its Operating Divisions.

This was revealed on Tuesday when a high-level Transnet delegation, led by its chief executive Brian Molefe, made a presentation to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Enterprise.

Molefe said they aimed to create a total of over 200 000 jobs directly and indirectly by 2016.

He said their projects, which were conservative, were based on a highly technical model devised by a team at the University of Stellenbosch.

Technical and functional skills accounted for 76 percent of all the training at Transnet's six technical schools, he said.

At their port terminals school, Molefe said they planned to train 4 205 learners in the next five years, while 2 637 others would be trained at ports.

At their rail schools, he said that they aimed to train nearly 7 000 students by 2016 as well as training over 7 500 in rail engineering.

Molefe said they needed R424 million, which would be distributed per Operation Division to upgrade their training facilities and increase trainee uptake.

In that respect, Ports Terminals would require R50 million, Ports R38 million and rail engineering R139 million.

Molefe said at the moment, they were taking 500 apprentices a year and hoped to beef that up to 1 000 next year.

In line with government policy of employment equity, he said that as of May, 76.4 percent of their employees were black and of that figure, 20.7 percent were women.

Molefe said they needed to employ more people with disabilities, who stood currently at 0.8 percent to 1.3 percent.

The committee commended the presentation, adding that they had the confidence the enterprise was in the right hands.

Transnet was also congratulated for a healthy balance sheet after posting an increase in profits of 9.4 percent to R15.8 billion in its financial year ending March 31. – BuaNews