Newsdesk

New app for African employment

09/07/2012

Mobile operators can now help to tackle access to employment with the launch of a new SMS-based job application app. Job Xpress - the new internet-free app from ForgetMeNot Africa - enables partnered mobile networks' subscribers to send CVs and job applications attached to mobile emails from any mobile phone, regardless of the model or make of the handset.

Recent OECD figures revealed that 40 million African youths are currently unemployed, representing 60 per cent of Africa's jobless. The difficulties, time constraints and the high cost involved in applying for jobs online in internet cafes - the main source of internet access for young Africans due to the lack of fixed telephone lines across the continent - further hamper the job application process.

ForgetMeNot Africa is launching the Job Xpress app across Africa. The first adopters are Glo Mobile, part of the Globacom network, Nigeria's largest independent mobile phone network with 25 million subscribers. Nigeria currently suffers from an unemployment rate of 23.9 per cent according to Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics, and youth unemployment stands at 41.6 per cent, according to a recent statement by Lamido Sanusi, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

ForgetMeNot Africa currently provides access to internet-free Facebook, email and online chat apps to over 62 million people across east, west, southern and central Africa. These apps enable subscribers to send and receive emails and online chat messages, update their Facebook profiles, comment on and 'like' their friends' Facebook statuses and send and receive Facebook Chat messages, all via SMS. The Job Xpress app will sit alongside these services. It is also available to data plan users, saving them time and money as they no longer have to use fixed-line internet services to attach their CV to emails via data connections that often time out. Job Xpress works via the SMS channel, and so bypasses the ongoing need for fixed telephone line Internet access, PCs, expensive subscriptions, smartphones, Java downloads or data connections.