Jobs Fund bears fruit with 220,000 sustainable jobs, parliament told
Jobs Fund was not intended to tackle the structural causes of low growth and unemployment, says Najwah Allie-Edries
The government's Jobs Fund is beginning to yield results and more than 220,000 sustainable jobs have been created to date, parliament heard on Tuesday. Briefing members of the standing committee on appropriations, Najwah Allie-Edries, head of the National Treasury’s Jobs Fund, said that since 2011 the fund had facilitated the creation of about 168,000 permanent and nearly 53,000 short-term jobs . The R9bn Jobs Fund was launched in 2011 by the president to support initiatives that pilot innovative approaches to employment creation. The government has been struggling to address the unemployment crisis, with joblessness now at about 27%. This has also had a negative impact on growth, with the World Bank recently noting that high unemployment and slow growth in household credit extension are expected to constrain domestic demand in 2019. In its January 2019 Global Economic Prospects report, the bank revised SA’s GDP growth forecast to 1.3%, down from its June 2018 estimate of 1.8%. Alli...
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