LETTER: How job reservation is going to tackle unemployment is a mystery

Once again we see a move by government to restrict employment practices (“Job reservation is on the cards, government confirms,” February 13).

Economists tell us the employment of foreign nationals in SA is less than 3% of our workforce. How this restriction is going to tackle SA’s record unemployment is therefore a mystery. 

In essence, the government merely wants to do something to make it look like it is trying to tackle the unemployment problem. Instead of actually addressing our restrictive labour laws and onerous regulations, it is making up more regulations as a decoy.

The statement by the home affairs ministry that it wants to implement existing labour laws is also ridiculous. If the laws exist, implement them, instead of trying to add more ridiculous and unworkable regulations.

First, we don’t have the workforce within the department of employment and labour to monitor and oversee the regulations, and second, few employers are actively recruiting at present, so any new regulations would be meaningless.

The employment and labour minister ought to understand that you cannot retrench people to make way for others purely to fulfil a new regulation mandate. 

The storm trooper behaviour of the EFF when barging into businesses to check their employment records will be heavily emboldened by introducing government-sanctioned quotas. If home affairs minister Aaron Motsoaledi is adamant that all government is doing is enforcing law and order, that’s what it should do, instead of introducing unworkable and unenforceable quotas.

Michael Bagraim
DA deputy employment and labour spokesperson

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