Government must step back and allow South Africans to live their own lives
Stats SA has announced SA’s unemployment rate has increased to 27.6%, but it’s a wonder that it isn’t above 45% at this point. The expanded rate increased to 38%, which translates to 9,994,000 unemployed people. SA’s jobless rate has not fallen below 20% since at least 2000. On top of that, GDP has not expanded by more than 2% a year since 2013. This was the first full quarter in which the national minimum wage has been applicable. With the huge public sector wage bill and the continued growth of government control and spending, we can expect GDP to continue stagnating, and the unemployment numbers to continue rising. There is much hope after last week’s elections that President Cyril Ramaphosa will introduce sweeping, tough economic reforms which will boost economic growth. The optimists among us hope that he will streamline his cabinet and appoint new ministers to key departments. Such change will be only superficial. Without questioning the role of government in general, it w...
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