According to Statistics South Africa, nearly six out of ten unemployed young people in South Africa lack prior work experience. This creates difficulties for them when applying, as many employers still use resumes for the initial screening of candidates for entry-level positions.
The agency noted in its decade review of the youth labor market, published in the first quarter of last year, that 'youth unemployment remains one of South Africa's most pressing problems.' However, data from the job search platform JOBJACK shows that employers are hiring thousands of people who do not possess the experience they initially required.
Wrong Questions
This year, among candidates selected through the JobFIT platform for vacancies requiring prior experience, 41% lacked this experience. This accounts for 3,208 individuals, with about 1,000 of those hired not listing any work history in their profiles. JOBJACK co-founder and CEO, Hein Bellingan, argues that 'Employers may think they cannot find suitable candidates for their advertised positions, but at the same time, they filter out most suitable candidates before anyone is assessed.'
Bellingan emphasizes that a resume only shows who has worked previously and who could afford to keep applying, but it does not indicate who will perform well at the cash register on a busy Saturday. The JobFIT system assesses every applicant according to the job requirements, so the initial applicant ends up on the same shortlist as someone with two years of experience. According to Bellingan, 'Without an assessment, the hiring manager has a resume and a guess.'
The Experience Trap
This problem is particularly acute for young South Africans trying to gain initial work experience. According to the latest labor survey by Stats SA, youth unemployment increased by 1.5 percentage points, reaching 47.4% in the second quarter of 2026, leaving five million young people jobless.
Simultaneously, the retail sector created 70,000 jobs this quarter, more than any other industry. This sector accounts for 23.6% of youth employment, and combined, low-skilled professions and sales and service jobs make up almost half of employed youth. Long-term figures look worse: a decade review by Statistics South Africa shows that unemployment among those aged 15 to 34 has risen from 36.9% in 2015 to 46.1% in 2025. Among the 15–24 age group, it rose from 50.3% to 62.4%.
The Money Hunt
A study conducted by Youth Capital and JOBJACK based on a survey of over 10,000 young people showed that the cost of job searching can reach R1,469 per month in South African Rand, including about R700 for transport. This means that eight out of ten respondents are forced to choose between spending money on job searching and buying food. Bellingan believes that entry-level employers should instead assess the capabilities candidates need to perform the job before using previous experience as a filter.
The JOBJACK system tests characteristics such as mathematical ability, reliability, and service orientation, assigning applicants a score regardless of whether they have prior work experience. Work history becomes one factor, rather than a determining requirement for candidate consideration.
Company Cost
The argument is not just that potentially suitable candidates miss out on employment. Hiring unsuitable employees can be expensive for employers, especially in high-turnover industries. A Remchannel study found that fast-moving consumer goods, retail, and manufacturing had the highest constant turnover among surveyed industries—16.4%, while sales and marketing recorded a turnover rate of 28%.
The survey, based on data from 64 organizations, also revealed that only 30% of participants regularly tracked turnover and associated costs. More than half did not measure some or all personnel costs in departments. Bellingan notes that this can lead to the cost of a bad hire being hidden elsewhere in the business. He says, 'If you hire by resume, you hire by a signal that poorly predicts in-store performance.'
Unhappy People
'A person leaves after three months, you go through the entire process again, and the costs remain in operations, not in HR, where no one notices,' states the report. HR Torque statistics show that replacing an employee in the FMCG sector costs 30%–50% of their annual salary. Remchannel CEO, René Richter, argues that high turnover can be detrimental as it can lead to decreased morale, productivity, and brand reputational damage. However, for someone who has never worked, the consequences of over-relying on past experience manifest much earlier in the process.
Bellingan concludes: 'You can directly measure whether someone arrives on time, handles a difficult customer, and works under pressure, even if they have never worked. Millions of people could do this job and would never be assessed for it. Reaching these people does not mean lowering the bar. It means measuring the right things.'
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