Unemployment stuck at 7 million: Zuma must announce turnaround plan in SONA

The number of unemployed South Africans has remained stuck at 7 million over the past year according to the StatsSA Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) released today.

It is now up to President Zuma to announce a bold turnaround plan in the State of the Nation Address (SONA) this week.

If there is a silver lining to the dark cloud of unemployment in South Africa it is that the Western Cape managed to create 98 000 jobs in the last quarter of 2013 - 70% of the net new jobs created nationally. In the same period, according to the QLFS, Gauteng did not add a single new job. 

Where we govern, the DA is creating jobs. We can do the same in Gauteng, and in other provinces we are elected to govern.

Tomorrow, the DA's leadership together with 6000 supporters will march to Luthuli House for REAL jobs. 

We want to expose the ANC's promise of six million "work opportunities" as nothing more than temporary public works placements, and contrast it with the six million REAL jobs that the DA will create if it is elected to national government.

The truth is that, President Zuma's original promise of 5 million jobs by 2014 has remained nothing but an unfulfilled pipe dream. Instead, 1.4 million people have joined the ranks of the unemployed since he assumed office.

Zuma's ANC has failed our people. South Africans need real jobs now.  

Statement issued by Tim Harris, DA Shadow Minister of Finance, February 11 2014

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