As part of a successful application by the AIDC Eastern Cape, 135 engineers will be placed into automotive and affiliated sectors over a period of three years, providing scarce skills support to the region’s manufacturers. The first year’s intake of 45 engineers have already been placed in 17 participating automotive industry businesses.
Speaking at the announcement today, AIDC representatives noted that they were pleased with the speed of uptake of the engineers from the local automotive industry and that they were confident that these engineers would find full time employment at the end of the year’s programme. The automotive sector has indicated that they are in dire need of qualified engineers in a host of disciplines.
The graduate engineers are mentored, placed and monitored by the AIDC and paid out of the Jobs Fund whilst undergoing on the job training.
The AIDC Eastern Cape has partnered with government’s Jobs Fund to ensure that the region’s automotive sector will be a major beneficiary.
The programme was expected to create sustainable annual savings to the Eastern Cape auto sector exceeding R100m and spur the creation of at least 2000 jobs in the automotive sector, the AIDC said.
Eastern Cape MEC, Department of Economic Development Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mcebisi Jonas said the successful Jobs Fund application added momentum to the Eastern Cape government’s efforts to grow the socio-economic outlook of the region.
“This programme is key to facilitating the growth of manufacturing output and the potential of exports by increasing our automotive supply chain’s level of global competitiveness. Increased productivity, particularly in manufacturing, creates much needed jobs,” Jonas said.
Jonas said the province was beginning to “pick the fruits of government’s investment in the AIDC”, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.
The AIDC Eastern Cape is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ECDC, an implementing arm of the Department of Economic Development Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
Funded through the Development Bank of South Africa’s R 9b Jobs Fund, the engineers will seek to improve the local automotive economy towards excellence under the AIDC’s internationally endorsed programmes and projects. The engineers will be placed at host companies around the Eastern Cape.
AIDC Jobs Fund Programme Director Lance Schultz said the programme will introduce advanced engineering capabilities to the region including simulation, design and statistical analysis for suppliers and manufacturing entities. In addition, the engineers will be developed in the leading performance improvement programmes including Six Sigma, Total Productive Maintenance and traditional World Class Manufacturing systems.
The AIDC, an implementing agency of the Eastern Cape Development Corporation and Eastern Cape Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism, will seek to place all the candidates after the programme’s duration at the host companies, however during the contract term all engineers will be sponsored through the programme to companies around the automotive hub of Nelson Mandela Bay.
“There is little doubt that every engineer on the programme will find permanent placement in industry after 12 months, then fully equipped to transfer learning into their new organisations,” Schultz said.
The programme will also create an estimated 2000 jobs through the competitiveness improvements made and indirect jobs exceeding 5000. “An increase in competitiveness will lead to an increase in local content as suppliers seek to mitigate the rising cost of production,” said Zahier Ebrahim, Senior Project Manager for Supplier Development.
Schultz said the AIDC’s existing shopfloor improvement programmes, which also makes extensive use of advanced engineering students placed within industry, created annual savings for the sector of R61.9m over a three year period ending April 2013.
“in this context, the resource of an engineer placed at no fee into Eastern Cape automotive manufacturers, under the guidance of the AIDC, is a major gain to industry and the competitiveness of the automotive cluster in the Eastern Cape.”
In addition, the AIDC’s PRIME programme adds advanced capabilities and resources to industry including specialised tooling skills and product design and simulation through a state of the art design laboratory that will be developed as part of the application.
Schultz said companies interested in hosting trainee engineers could contact the AIDC with immediate effect.
The R9 billion Fund was announced by President Jacob Zuma in 2011 with the aim of finding innovative solutions to South Africa’s employment problem. To date, the Fund has approved grant funding of more than R3.4 billion, of which more than R1.2 billion has been allocated to private sector led initiatives. This R1.2 billion has been matched by a further R1.576 billion in funding raised by the private sector.
It is projected that the 66 approved portfolio of projects will create 100,524 new permanent jobs in the economy. The fund is managed by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
Alan Straton
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