Senior Technical Advisor: Inclusive Hiring Lead (PYEI) at GIZ South Africa, Lesotho & eSwatini

• GIZ supports the PYEI in implementing its strategy to expand income-generating opportunities and employment pathways for young people.
• This role will support the delivery of a key Presidency priority initiative and will involve high-level engagement with senior government, private-sector and development partner stakeholders.

What We Need From You

Qualifications:

• An advanced degree in Public Policy, Development Studies, Economics, Education or Skills Development, Social Sciences, or another relevant discipline.

Professional Experience

• At least 10 years’ experience in public policy, management consulting, and/or economics.
• A strong understanding of government, labour market dynamics, youth employment policy, and employer behaviour.
• Experience working across government, business, and delivery partners.
• Proven ability to manage complex, cross-cutting coordination processes.
• Strategic thinking and policy-to-implementation capability.
• Experience producing high-quality briefs, reports, and presentations for senior leadership.
• Demonstrated experience working in a high-pressure team environment.

What You Will Be Doing

• The Senior Technical Advisor: Inclusive Hiring Lead will oversee the implementation of Lever 1: Inclusive Hiring by driving systemic changes in hiring practices across the public and private sectors.
• The objective of this lever is to ensure that all new entry-level jobs added to the economy are accessible to young people, without displacing older workers.

In this role, you will focus on:

• Working with industry to reduce structural and behavioural barriers to youth hiring.
• Strengthening and aligning government incentives and regulations to favour inclusive hiring.
• Mobilising employers to adopt youth-inclusive recruitment and retention practices.

Your key responsibilities will include:

Policy and Incentive Alignment

• Support the review and reform of government incentive instruments, including DTIC incentives, Employment Tax Incentive, BBBEE codes, and YES, to maximise youth employment and inclusive supply-chain outcomes.
• Work with National Treasury, DTIC, DPSA, DHET and DEL to align fiscal, regulatory and administrative levers in support of inclusive hiring.
• Provide technical inputs into Cabinet, cluster and interdepartmental processes related to inclusive hiring reforms.

Employer Mobilisation and Behaviour Change

• Support the design and rollout of targeted employer mobilisation initiatives, including the Business-Government Partnership on Employment and related advocacy campaigns.
• Engage large employers, sector bodies and SMMEs to identify barriers to youth hiring and co-design practical solutions.
• Promote evidence-based inclusive hiring practices, including alternative assessments, work-readiness support, proximity-based recruitment and onboarding support for youth.

Public Sector Inclusive Hiring

• Support audits of entry-level vacancies below level 6.
• Support centralised youth recruitment and placement mechanisms.
• Support pathways for interns, National Youth Service participants and graduates into permanent roles.
• Work with DPSA and line departments to align workforce planning, retirement policies and graduate recruitment with youth employment objectives.

Enabling Platforms and Intermediaries

• Strengthen the role of SA Youth and the National Pathway Management Network as primary recruitment and matching platforms for inclusive hiring.
• Support the scaling of intermediaries that reduce hiring risk for employers and improve retention outcomes for youth.
• Promote alignment between inclusive hiring efforts and demand-led skilling, work-integrated learning and outcomes-based funding mechanisms.

Monitoring and Learning

• Track progress against inclusive hiring targets across sectors and programmes.
• Identify implementation bottlenecks and escalate systemic risks to the Presidency Project Management Office.
• Capture lessons learned and support the replication of successful inclusive hiring models across sectors.