LETTER: Growth and skills two disparate issues
Economic growth will not necessarily lead to more employment among those who are poverty stricken
There are three misleading economic ideas in Business Day’s March 5 edition. They are important because, unfortunately, they often inform SA’s economic policy. The editorial “Low Growth is a Letdown” maintains that annual growth of 5% or more will assist us to “make inroads into the country’s unemployment crisis”. Growth rates of even, say, 20% or more are, however, unlikely to make much difference to the employment prospects of those poverty-stricken millions who lack any marketable skills. As John Stuart Mill pointed out in 1848, the demand for commodities is not the demand for labour. Growth in the production of goods and services that requires skills relevant to current and future organisational and technical processes will certainly impact positively on the relevant labour markets. But this is cold comfort to the unemployed and the poor in, say, rural Venda. Their only hope of even a basic standard of living is in significantly increased social grants and root-and-branch reform...
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