Cape Town - The growing unemployment rate and rate at which jobs are shed are a ticking time bomb and a summit by government is urgently required to prevent the consequences.
The Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) said they "feel the pain of the unemployed” and called on the government to intervene “decisively and strategically" to avert a crisis.
Bishop Abel Gabuza, the chairperson of the SACBC, said they have noted the recent statistics and join the calls for a job summit to discuss the ongoing retrenchments and the measures to expand job creation in the tough economic climate. He said the summit should be convened as a matter of urgency.
“The job summit should not shy away from discussing and pursuing job creation through macro-economic reforms and mitigation of the current political uncertainties. Our country needs a macro-economic framework that it is increasingly labour-absorbing and equitable in its distribution patterns.”
Statistics from Stats SA, for the second quarter, released this week showed that employment declined by 113000 with the number of job-seekers also declining by 37000.
The largest decreases were recorded in the construction and agricultural sectors.
Economist Dawie Roodt said a number of factors are to blame for the numbers.
“We have inferior skills development and an inferior education system that does not prepare people adequately.” He said the slow pace of economic growth and fast pace of population growth was also a contributing factor. “The saddest (aspect) is that any economy’s most important resource is labour and we are not using that.”
Roodt said a lot of the unemployed were probably not going to find jobs, but added that the answer did not lie in creating more jobs.
President of the Cape Chamber of Commerce Janine Myburgh, said unemployment makes SA less attractive as an investment destination.
“It also makes our companies which have branches or trade in other countries concentrate their efforts outside of the country. This means we are losing opportunities.”
Chief economist at the Institute for Race Relations Ian Cruickshanks said sadly there was little that could be done to address the issue of unemployment, adding that the economy felt the impact.
He said SA needs to work on attracting more foreign investors to help with the issue of unemployment.