Fixed investment is how SA will solve its unemployment crisis
SA is one of the few countries in the world where there are more adults not at work than adults at work, Mike Schussler says
The government has to aim for a fixed investment target of 8% of GDP to reduce SA’s high unemployment rate to the international average, an employment study has found. The 17th South African Employment Report, sponsored by trade union Uasa, shows SA’s unemployment rate of 27.2% to be almost five times the international average of 5.5%. Economist Mike Schussler, who undertook the research and presented the study on Monday, said that setting a fixed investment target should be a necessary outcome of the government’s planned jobs summit later in 2018. However, getting to the international unemployment average would take 17 years of annual growth of about 8.7% annually, the study also found. “Fixed investment is part of growth and it’s the part of growth that has the strongest relationship with employment,” Schussler said adding that private sector, apart from banks and agriculture, were not making sufficient profits to embark on significant fixed investment. “Their return on the assets...
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