DUMA GQUBULE: Radical policies needed to spur growth and curtail joblessness
With GDP declining during the first quarter of 2019 and the unemployment rate rising, the economy is in a crisis
I have been predicting this moment for a few years — that the number of unemployed South Africans will increase to 10-million people — if the government does not change its economic policies. Will it take 11-million or 12-million unemployed people for the government to feel the pain of each person who cannot find work, and chart a new path beyond its failed orthodoxies? According to Statistics SA’s more realistic expanded definition, the unemployment rate for black Africans is 42.5%. The figure for black African females is 45.9%. The unemployment rate in the Eastern Cape is 48.3%. The youth unemployment rate is 69.1%. Meanwhile, the economy is collapsing. GDP declined during the first quarter of 2019. It will be the third quarterly decline since the start of 2018. There is a 50-50 chance that there will be another recession in 2019 , according to Old Mutual economist Johann Els. President Cyril Ramaphoria is not working. SA is in its worst post-apartheid economic crisis. But the thr...
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