SAMWU Reaction to Unemployment Figures
15 May 2019
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) is disappointed and concerned by Quarterly Labour Force Survey statistics which have revealed that unemployment has grown by 62 000 to 6.2 million or 27.6% of the country’s population. This while a further 3 million people have given up on looking for employment as they believe there are just no prospects of them being employed.
Of great concern to us is that economy has not grown by more than 2% since 2013 and as such more jobs are likely to be lost unless there is serious economic growth recorded in the coming years. We therefore urge the incoming government to live up to the promise made to the electorate that the economy will grow by 5% a year in order to ensure that the much needed jobs are retained and more are created.
South African voters have been promised that 275 000 jobs will be created a year by the 6th administration. Workers and citizens are anxious and want to see the realisation of this promise and many more others. Surely voters will hold government accountable if it fails to live up to this promise as the country cannot afford anymore job losses and unemployment particularly among the youth.
We call on the private sector and government to play their part in ensuring that youth are employed and absorbed into the labour market. The tendencies of awarding youth learnerships and not absorbing them when their contracts expire should end. We on the same note welcome government’s commitment to relax work experience requirements, we believe that this will assist in reducing the country’s high unemployment levels among the young.