LETTER: Jobs report not taken up by department
The labour department seems to have ignored a report on policy drawn up by a high-level panel
As we all know, SA has one of the worst unemployment rates in the world. The fourth democratic parliament resolved that the fifth democratic parliament would assess the impact of legislation passed since 1994.This has been done, and one of the areas looked into was unemployment. One of the factors assessed was the possible unintended consequences and unanticipated problems with post-apartheid legislation. The high-level panel based its assessment on the statistics of 2016, yet today we have 15.5-million economically inactive adults in SA. We also note that in the first quarter of 2018 only 12% of the population aged 15 to 24 years was employed. Interestingly and alarmingly, the report asserts that the unemployment problem is compounded by the government’s labour policy choices. These choices include wage-setting policies such as the national minimum wage, which has been processed by parliament. To quote: “the report cautions that while these policies were espoused with good intentio...
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