Unemployment a growing emergency demanding urgent action
1 December 2021
The growing unemployment rate announced by StatSA is an indication of a growing crisis that demands urgent action. StatsSA revealed yesterday, that there are 1.2 million net jobs lost, pushing the expanded unemployment rate up by 2.2 percentage points to 46.6%. Yesterday’s announcement, coming as it does whilst President Ramaphosa is galavanting across the continent, only further confirms that South Africa is in a jobs emergency.
This announcement is also the first indication of the economic destruction caused by the violence and looting which took place in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal in July of this year. Indeed, the Statistician-General exposed the fact that half of the survey’s respondents in Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal indicated that the unrest in those provinces discouraged them from seeking work.
Whilst voters correctly demonstrated their resolve to enforce accountability by voting for parties other than the ANC in last month’s election, it is an indictment on the governing party that there has been seemingly no progress on the purported investigation into the alleged “12 instigators” South Africans were made to believe were behind the destruction.
One thing is for sure, newly elected local governments, particularly the coalition governments currently being finalised in the Gauteng Metros have a mammoth task ahead – to ensure that they quickly become centres of opportunity and job creation, where especially young people can move from lecture halls and other places of education, straight into workplaces.