ANDILE KHUMALO: Time to think differently about jobs
We are in a desperate time when our youth are choosing crime over education and work
The economic gods deserted all their subjects this week when the announcement came that, against most pundits' expectations, the South African economy had shrunk by 0.7% in the first quarter of 2017. This not only placed us in a technical recession, it also completed my personal tick list of all key indicators of a healthy economy. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, all at the wrong time. We have arrived at the "winter of our discontent", and few have said it better than Pali Lehohla, the statistician-general, when he released the very depressing latest employment numbers. "When you look at our crime statistics, they tell you that out of the 800,000 instances of criminal activity estimated to occur in South Africa, 400,000 cases are reported. Out of the reported cases, 70,000 are prosecuted and total convictions come in at 20,000. So only 2% of criminals pay for their crimes. If this was a casino and one had to consider odds, [one] would not go to school and instead be a...
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