UNEMPLOYMENT
THETO MAHLAKOANA: Declare a crisis? Action is what we need
What more needs to happen for these commentators to understand that the crisis has been with us for years and is not going away anytime soon as long as the government’s response is so lacklustre?
If it was not so tragic, the reaction to the latest unemployment data released by Statistics SA would have made for necessary comic relief in the face of the crippling economic challenges facing the country. SA economists and political parties tied themselves in knots explaining why it was time to declare that the country’s unemployment problem had reached crisis levels, looking at the government to finally spell out the word. This came after Stats SA had said the number of unemployed had increased to 6.1-million people in the second quarter, or 27.2% of the country’s working population. The expanded definition of employment, which includes discouraged workers, increased to 9.6-million or 37.2% of a growing working age population which the labour market is unable to absorb.What more needs to happen for these commentators to understand that the crisis has been with us for years and is not going away anytime soon as long as the government’s response is so lacklustre? The sight of youn...
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