Disabled job-seeker gets offer after 9 years

The future looks promising for unemployed Barileng Ngobeni, who this week is expected to meet his prospective employer.

Ngobeni, an office administrator from Atteridgeville, Pretoria, is confined to a wheelchair and has battled to get a job for nine years. On Friday, the 28-year-old office administration graduate got a call from a company offering jobs to disabled people. He was asked to send his CV and was told that a meeting would be set up for this week.

"I am looking forward to meeting them," said Ngobeni, who was contacted by the Johannesburg company after a special report in The Times last week revealed that an estimated 8million South Africans had no job.

Ngobeni, who was quoted in the report, was paralysed from the waist down in a car accident in 2001. He said companies were reluctant to employ him because of his disability. But he said he would not give up his search for a job.

Several readers of The Times responded to the report.

"Unemployment is frightening. We run a small recruitment agency and we see the desperate faces every day," wrote Rod Murphy.

He invited people with skills in civil, mechanical or electrical engineering, or in medicine, mining or building, to send CVs to ystaflow@yahoo.com.

An anonymous reader said unemployment could not be reduced under the current labour laws.

"The recession over the last two years resulted in the retrenchment of 60 of our staff. Now that business is recovering, we will not be employing again because of the cost and hassles with the CCMA last time. We will increase automation."