Unemployment in South Africa has hit a record high, and things are not getting any better.Stats SA reported that more than 35 percent of the population is without jobs.There are many factors to consider but Covid-19 exacerbated the problem, crippling the economy and discouraging jobseekers. When the hard lockdown was introduced in early 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many thought it would just be for a few weeks and things will be back to normal. Little did they know that many were about to start losing jobs or sources of income. Apart from much needed services, many companies and sectors had to make other means for business to continue. Most professionals were able to work from home, but this forced many blue-collar workers to idle at home without income.
MORE JOB LOSSES
Even with that in consideration, unemployment in South Africa has been a problem as government has been struggling to adequately address it properly since the 2008 recession. About a million jobs were lost and the country unemployment just didn't recover. Ivan Israelstam, Chief Executive of Labour Law Management Consulting says even though it's plausible that the president did in fact verbalise the crisis in his SONA speech, he has failed to resolve it. President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted that the private sector is the one capable of creating jobs and not government. Highlighting that it would need the government to create an enabling environment for businesses to invest.This was seen as back paddling by the president as he'd earlier promised, among others, that the government's new Social Employment Fund will create 50 000 work opportunities. "His failure is not due to any reluctance to end our unemployment problem; it is because the government's interventions are at best superficial and are therefore ineffective,' Ivan says.
GOVERNMENT FAILS TO ADDRESS UNEMPLOYMENT
Thembinkosi Mkalipi, the Chief Director: Labour Policy and industrial Relations admits that unemployment is an issue that government is dealing with, however, there are challenges. "Thbiggest The biggest challenge is that the labour market is not creating enough jobs. This is a result of many issues including some administration regulations from local government upwards. That is why the president has pushed the reset button to deal with this problem,' he says.The Institute for Economic Justice(IEJ) expressed its disappointment in the policy direction laid out by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in his budget speech earlier this year. IEJ says the government has run out of ideas in dealing with unemployment. "There is no clear job creation strategy,' said IEJ in a statement. "For government to realise its key role in job creation and retention, the Presidential Employment Scheme (PES) must be scaled up, and gaps filled, together with a broader public sector jobs strategy,' suggests the organisation.
HOW TO REDUCE UNEMPLOYMENT
But as the situation stands, more people are still unemployed and if things remain the same, then we're headed for worst of times. Covid-19 has taken lives and incomes, now it's taking livelihoods. Thembinkosi says he wishes he could tell how long before we rid ourselves of the impact of the pandemic. Ivan believes that leaders of labour and business need to discover Shareism, the common ground between radical socialism and radical capitalism. He stresses that we need to reject these two ideology constraints and replace them with free market element of wealth creation and the constructive socialist element of egalitarianism. "This will end the war between socialism and capitalism; and will replace it with a partnership wherein the workers and owners at each workplace jointly practice co-productivity, and jointly benefit from its fruits,' he suggests.
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