- Pikitup is warning users on social media to not fall for a fraudulent job ad purporting to be from the refuse service.
- The ad seems to be stemming from a notable creator of scam job advertisements that may be connected to the website jobdogs.co.za.
- The fake ad has been circulating weeks after strike action of former Pikitup employees demanding permanent employment.
Johannesburg’s refuse service Pikitup has said that a job advertisement to work at the company circulating in social media is not only fraudulent but seeks to disrupt its services in the city once again.
According to a media statement from Pikitup, the fraudulent advertisement and those behind it are looking to exploit desperate job seekers in the city. The advertisement contains a number of incorrect pieces of information, but may appear valid to unsuspecting social media users.
The fake post says that Pikitup is looking for 400 general workers to work at various depots at the company. It directs interested parties to contact a WhatsApp line, which Pikitup says is not how it handles employment opportunities, and also to a website: jobdogs.co.za.
We checked out this site and found that it lists a number of actual job and internship opportunities across the country. There is also a similar domain that also lists jobs, which may be real or fake.
The website’s name however is listed together with a number of potentially fraudulent job adverts for fake positions across the country, ones that look similar to the fake Pikitup ad.
They all also direct readers to the same WhatsApp number.
These include jobs for the Free State Department of Economic and Small Business Development, Tiger Brands, Sibanye Stillwater, the City of Cape Town, the Mpumalanga Department of Education, Sasol, Amazon South Africa, and many, many more.
Pikitup advises the public to not engage with or respond to this or any of Jobdogs.co.za’s deceptive advertisements.
“Pikitup expresses deep disappointment at this incident, particularly following the casual worker strike last month,” the company writes in the statement.
“During that strike, casual workers resorted to violence to demand permanent employment from the company, disrupting waste collection services across Johannesburg.”
Last year, Pikitup advertised 300 temporary positions, which all expired in May 2024. When permanent employees were brought in from outside this batch of 300 workers, strike action ensued. Strikers alleged that Pikitup glossed over the workers in order to make a series of nepotism hires.
Trash stopped being collected in many areas across Johannesburg. Even with a number of Pikitup recovery initiatives since then, vast piles of garbage are still visible in downtown Johannesburg.
