Government’s calamitous vacillation is destroying workers livelihoods

7 October 2016  

The latest Quarterly Employment Statistics report released by Statistics South Africa that shows that the number of people employed in SA’s non-agriculture sector fell by 0.7 percent to 9.218 million people in the second quarter of the year is an indictment on government and big business.

This report says employment in the formal non-agricultural sector of the South African economy decreased by 67 000 quarter-on-quarter, from 9.28 million between March and June.

This is proves that our feckless and uninspired government is out of its depth ,and that our private sector that has confessed that it is hoarding about R600bn simply does not care. 

Government ministers continue to make excuses and lament over something that they are supposed to fix, while the neoliberal fundamentalists in the private sector continue to blackmail and coerce government in order to consolidate the rule of the market; and ensure that there is a transfer of economic power from the public to the private sector, through privatisation.

They are both, big business and government, saying nothing coherent to address the structural unemployment and widening poverty in the country. The progressive policies of the ANC have been abandoned and replaced by policies that pander to big business and ratings agencies. The Alliance’s decision for the overhaul of the economic and labour market chapter of the national development has been ignored. All of this contributes to the building and consolidation of a standing army of angry, desperate and unemployed citizens, with no hope or trust in government anymore.

Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 7 October 2016