Johannesburg - Unemployment in South Africa is a ticking bomb, Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi told the Sunday Times.
“The bomb will continue to tick until at some point it begins exploding in a co-ordinated way,” said the Congress of SA Trade unions general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
Statistics SA reported this week that the official unemployment rate in the first quarter of the year had risen to 25.2 percent from 24.9 percent in the last quarter of 2012.
“We're already seeing individual bombs exploding, but if the explosions are knitted together from Marikana to every mine, to every farm, to every township, then we'll have a crisis.”
Forty four people were killed in violence related to a wild-cat strike at Lonmin's Marikana mine in August last year.
Vavi said the situation around unemployment should be “making every South African have sleepless nights”. - Sapa