Relatively minor amendments to labour laws could make it easier for millions to find work, and so ease South Africa’s chronic unemployment burden.
This is among the arguments put forward in the latest of the Blueprint for Growth reports from the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), Generating Jobs and Skills for Growth and Prosperity, which makes the case for reforms needed to generate jobs and skills to help stimulate growth and increase prosperity.
The report is to be launched on Tuesday next week with an online discussion between author of the report, IRR head of policy research Dr Anthea Jeffery and IRR head of strategic communications Hermann Pretorius.
You can register to join the webinar at https://streamyard.com/watch/GDvFRcBrshqh
In a statement, the IRR notes that the ANC has been promising “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” since before the 1994 election, and has been pledging to bring about “a skills revolution” for almost as long. Yet the unemployment rate in June 2024 was 33.5%, while the skills shortage remains dire too.
Says Dr Jeffery: “In a hobbled economy growing very slowly and unable to generate jobs on anything like the scale required, people have become increasingly desperate for work. In June 2023, for example, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi advertised 8,000 job vacancies across various provincial departments and received an extraordinary 1.2 million applications.”
Overcoming South Africa’s unemployment crisis is “a moral imperative”, adds Dr Jeffery, as well as an economic and political one. “That 8.4 million people are jobless on the official definition – and four million more on the expanded one – is a human tragedy.”
Equally serious is the country’s failure to provide sound skills to all its youth via effective schools, TVET colleges and universities. More than half the country’s pupils leave school without a matric, even on a 35% pass rate. TVET colleges and SETAs are hopeless at technical and on-the-job training. Universities struggle with poorly prepared students and high drop-out rates. “Free” tertiary education is costly and wasteful.
The government of national unity (GNU) has identified both growth and jobs as key priorities. This offers new hope that essential policy changes are now within the country’s grasp.
Relatively minor amendments to labour laws could make it easier for millions to find work, as Dr Jeffery’s report explains. Achieving sound skills development is more complex. In a nutshell, what it needs is thinking “outside the box” on how to increase efficiency and value through competition and innovation.