GAVIN KEETON: We cannot afford youth with no prospect of ever working
The rise in long-term unemployment is the most alarming figure in StatsSA's latest labour survey
According to the labour force survey released last week the official rate of unemployment in SA rose to 27.5% in the third quarter. This means 6.2-million South Africans were unable to find jobs. When this is expanded to include people whose repeated failure discourages them from looking for work, the number rises to 8.9-million, 37.3% of our workforce. Put another way, only 16.4-million of 38-million South Africans aged 15 to 64 years have jobs. In 2008 the official unemployment rate was 21.5% and 4.3-million people were unemployed. Critics lambasted the economic policies implemented under then president Thabo Mbeki for delivering “jobless growth”. But, in fact, growth was not jobless. More than 1-million jobs were created between 2005 and 2008, when GDP growth reached 5% per annum. The problem was this was not sufficient to provide jobs for both new entrants to the labour force, or to make substantial inroads into existing levels of unemployment. Since 2008 the number of people un...
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