Johannesburg - Economic Development Minister, Ebrahim Patel, has hailed the youth employment incentive as being a mechanism that helped create 426 000 new jobs since its implementation.
He is speaking at Cosatu’s congress in Johannesburg.
The employment incentive is more well known as the controversial youth wage subsidy.
He said Cosatu proposed decent work as a key pillar of the government’s economic policy at the ANC’s conference in Polokwane in 2007.
At the party’s last national conference in Mangaung, three years ago, the country’s biggest trade union federation proposed the National Infrastructure Plan.
These proposals were reaping benefits, evidenced by the fact 344 000 new jobs were created in recent years in construction alone.
“Since the (Economic development department implemented the) New Growth Path, two million new jobs have been created,” Patel told about 2000 delegates.
“But 1.2m more people joined the workforce.”
This meant that the country was still not creating sufficient jobs.
Other sectors where employment grew, are in government, business and finance, trade and retail and mining.
But there were 58 000 job losses in the manufacturing sector.
“Since last congress (in 2012) there are 608 000 new jobs for women, mainly in formal sector. There are 659 000 new jobs for men, many in the informal sector.”
But 5.4m South Africans remain unemployment, with only 15.8m employed.
Labour Bureau