The department of home affairs (DHA) has more than 350-million birth, marriage, death and amendment paper records to digitise.

They date back to 1895, necessitating care and reliable systems that will tolerate digitisation.

This was revealed by minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Thursday.

He said the bulk of the records are in Gauteng, the North West and the Western Cape.

The department is therefore set to recruit about 10,000 unemployed young graduates to digitise the documents.

“The department is increasingly using technology to improve the way it renders services to people and to improve the security of our documents,” said Motsoaledi.

Unemployed youth should be qualified in information technology and document, information and records management, with their qualifications obtained from higher-learning institutions, including universities, universities of technology and TVETs, he said.

The project is expected to run from November until October 2025.

Employees will be paid a stipend ranging from R5,000 for entry-level positions to R9,500 for technical support positions and R14,250 for managerial positions.

“This cohort will be required to sign a three-year contract linked to the duration of the project,” said Motsoaledi.

The department will also partner with stakeholders to facilitate recruits' training. Continuous learning and development interventions will be provided to enhance their employability and allow them to leverage entrepreneurial opportunities beyond the project.

The acquisition process, a collaboration with the department of employment and labour (DEL), will be undertaken in three phases:

• Phase 1 will see the recruitment of 2,000 graduates, with adverts available from Thursday. This cohort will start work on November 1.
• Phase 2 will see 4,000 graduates recruited. These positions will be advertised in October, with work starting in January.
• Phase 3 will see the last 4,000 graduates recruited, with adverts for this phase going out in December and January. They will start work in April.

Youth can apply on the DHA and DEL websites. Those without internet access can visit their closest department of employment and labour centre.

Motsoaledi said young women would make up 60% of the intake in honour of the Women’s Month.

“Parallel to the process of youth acquisition, the department is also preparing the work stations and sourcing tools required to ensure they are able to start digitising records in December,” he said.

He said South Africans often complained about delays when applying for unabridged birth certificates, unabridged marriage certificates, amendments and rectification of their biographic details. This was because home affairs officials have to manually search for original documents among the 350-million to finalise applications.

“Obviously such a tedious process will take a long time, which people may not be aware of. This leads to frustration when people have to make several visits to home affairs.”

TimesLIVE