The Liebherr Academy, a social responsibility imitative of Liebherr-Africa, will have invested as much as R27-million in training artisans at the black empowered training institute, the Artisan Training Institute (ATI), by the end of 2014.
The current aim is to train a further 100 artisans, in a roll out that is expected to be concluded by the end of next year, says Sean Jones, a director of ATI.

“Liebherr has been sending recruits to us for training since 2008 and its commitment to training has been quite remarkable.”

Jones says about 100 learners will walk through the ATI doors during the “current focused training period, which concludes at the end of 2014”.

Explaining further, Jones said the training initiative championed by Liebherr had commenced in 2008.

“All these learners have been trained at ATI and, at the end of their training, it is ATI’s job to place the new artisans in jobs across South Africa.

“What this means is that this R27-million investment by Liebherr, over seven years, is for the greater good of the country. The qualified artisans do not necessarily go and work for Liebherr.”

Jones says it is pleasing to see companies like Liebherr “steadfastly investing”: in the proper training of artisans, saying that the country is unfortunately blighted by a practise whereby so-called artisans entering the professional market are “totally undertrained and without the ability to perform their duties”.