Realised functionings when using the Internet to find employment

In terms of the realised functionings, the youth were able to achieve several capabilities when searching for employment. Capabilities can be closely linked to the individual functionings (Robeyns, 2005). In this study, the use of the Internet increases the chances of finding employment. The use of the Internet somewhat enabled the youth to search for employment opportunities effectively when compared to the traditional method of finding work. Depending on the individuals capabilities, the outcome of the functionings can be either potential or realised (Nyemba-Mudenda & Chigona, 2018). From the individual level, there were numerous opportunities generated by the Internet. For example, participants using the Internet to find employment were able to search for employment from a large pool of job opportunities available through the online portal. Through using mobile devices with an Internet connection, job seekers from the townships achieved some of the following functionings: networking with potential employees, gaining information, downloading/uploading files, editing personal resumes, sending/receiving communication using emails and social networking platforms (Sam, 2015).

Youth were able to search and apply for jobs using different online career portals and mobile apps designed to assist job seekers to find employment. The findings show that the use of the Internet when searching for employment did not only afford youth to search and apply for jobs, but the Internet use helped individuals improve personal capabilities such as digital skills and knowledge. Using the Internet to access job opportunities appears to be the most effective, efficient and cost-effective method of searching for employment among youth living in

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income communities. The study findings indicated that the youth using the Internet managed to save on financial costs such as travelling fairs and printing resumes (ITU, 2014; Yu, 2017).

The study highlights that the Internet played a crucial role in advancing the individuals confidence, knowledge and digital skills among the low skilled youth. In addition, the use of the Internet opened possibilities that were often limited by distance and access to resources income (Alampay, 2006a). The research outcomes indicate that the youth from the townships use the Internet as an alternative tool to their traditional methods of searching and applying for jobs.

This is in line with other studies in the literature that stated that the Internet enables the youth to work efficiently and productively when searching for employment (Blumel, 2015; van Deursen, Courtois, et al., 2014). Other realised functionings for the youth when seeking employment included the ability to create online job profiles and storing personal files on the professional searching engines. Literature outlined that the online job searching engines provide job seekers with capabilities such as automation, storing information, updates on new matching job post as well as filtering options (Kuhn & Mansour, 2014; Mang, 2012a). Through using the Internet, the majority of the youth managed to prepare and learn more about job culture and company information through the company portals and Google search engine.

6.4. What are the challenges affecting the use of the Internet among the youth seeking employment?

It was found in this study that the lack of income, access to internet, knowledge and limited digital skills hindered effective use of Internet among youth living in low-income communities.

For example, income difference affected how and when the youth could search for jobs.

According to literature, the lack of income, access to ICT resources and being excluded from Internet resources leads to frustrations (Bisimwa, Brown, & Johnston, 2018). Other barriers that hinder majority of the youth from using the Internet effectively when seeking jobs include high cost to access Internet data, poor network coverage, limited digitals skills and lack of awareness.

As pointed out in literature limited access to financial, educational and material resources affected how resources can be converted into potential functionings (Hatakka et al., 2016).

Chiwara et al. (2017) agreed that the lack of employment results into limited access to resources such as income and mobile data disempowered the youth from achieving the potential functionings. The study participants lacked the necessary qualifications and skills needed to

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compete for employment in the job market. Thus, the majority of job seekers had a low success rate in securing long term employment.

When it comes to the educational background of the youth, the majority of the job seekers from the townships come from schools where technology was not perceived as part of education. With limited knowledge, illiterate job seekers are unable to take advantage of online resources when job seeking. As stipulated by other studies in literature, the youth from low-income communities had limited training on how to effectively use ICT tools to take advantage of the online resources (Hjort & Poulsen, 2017). The lack of ICT skills has been acknowledged as one of the contributing factors to limited use of Internet among job seekers from the townships.

On the other hand, cyber-crime remains one of the major concerns among youth using their personal information to apply for jobs using online platforms. The findings from the study participant indicated that cyber-crime, as well as the online scams that mislead job seekers. Feuls et al. (2014) highlighted that there is often discomfort among Internet job seekers when they have to store their contacts details online.

As discussed in chapter 5, research participants did not have the luxury to afford excessive mobile data, therefore majority of the job seekers in this study relied on free resources provided by the public telecentre. Youth with limited ICT resources depend on the public telecentres proving free access to Internet resources (Ramadani, Kurnia, & Breidbach, 2018). The finding indicated that in a day, the Smart Cape centre provides youth with Internet access that is limited to 30min for the Wi-Fi and 45 minutes for desktop computers. Job seekers that used telecentres to access web portal were in many cases affected by the limited time allocated per session. The lack of job offers often discourages the youth from using the Internet to find employment. Other studies have highlighted that long term unemployment leads to low self-confidence in using the Internet to find employment (Young Enterprise, 2016).

In this study, the use of the Internet presented the youth with potential and achievable functionings. The use of online resources to find employment increased the chances of getting employed. However, finding employment using the Internet is not a guarantee, therefore success depended on other factors such as individuals attribute and characteristics. Other research studies have shown that there is little evidence that reveals that the use of Internet has

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successfully helped the youth find employment more easily (Ebaidalla, 2014). However, effective use and access to Internet depended on the availability of ICT commodities and conversional factors.

The study found that personal factors emerged as some of the leading factors that impacted the effective use of Internet among job seekers. Factors such as income, skills and education influenced how the youth used the Internet (Helsper, van Deursen, & Eynon, 2016). When it comes to social factors, the study found that the majority of the youth ability to use the Internet was somehow influenced by close relatives or friends. Social beliefs such as cultural influence shaped how people use the Internet in low-income communities (Helsper et al., 2016; Nyemba-Mudenda & Chigona, 2018). The environmental factors such as high crime rates and lack of infrastructural development affected how and when youth could use their mobile devices to access the Internet when seeking employment (Graham & Mlatsheni, 2015). This study revealed that due to high levels of crime in the townships, majority of youth were unable to carry and use their mobile devices effectively when travelling in public spaces. One of the factors that contribute to the lack of access to ICT resources is the poor infrastructure within developing countries (Kaliisa & Picard, 2017; Sam, 2015). To access the Internet when applying for employment, the youth were forced to travel long distances.

The findings show that despite the circumstances and the challenges to access the Internet, to some extent the majority were still able to get connected using social networking sites to seek for employment. In this study, the use of Internet afforded and expanded the opportunities for the youth to find employment. However, given the conditions, not all youth seeking employment benefited from using the Internet. For instance, some of the job seekers had limited digital skills therefore, did not have the freedom to search and apply for employment using online resources (Dillahunt et al., 2016). The respondents highlighted that based on the number of job applications sent over a period, only a few job interviews were achieved. To achieve the needed functionings such as finding employment was largely depended on the individual capabilities, freedom of choices, access to information and the availability of ICT resources (Egdell & Graham, 2016).

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