Olebogeng Molatlhwa and TJ Strydom
FOR the next five years of ANC rule, South Africa will still not have a permanent solution to the crippling scourge of youth unemployment.
The ANC, widely expected to remain in government after this year's general election, is preparing to deliver six million "work opportunities" – as opposed to jobs – mostly to desperate and unemployed young South Africans.
This as a survey yesterday showed that the country last year lost thousands of formal sector jobs.
"Since January 2013, the informal sector has generated 73799 jobs, compared with a total decline of 241536 permanent and temporary jobs," labour economist Loane Sharp said on the release of Adcorp's employment index.
President Jacob Zuma's pledge in 2009 to create 500000 jobs in his first year in office was not even close to being fulfilled, Sharp said.
He said unemployed or discouraged workseekers now stood at a "staggering" 8.6 million.
To create enough permanent jobs to absorb all school leavers into the labour market, South Africa's economy needed to grow at twice the current rate, Sharp said.
Zuma announced the latest initiative – to be carried out through the government's Expanded Public Works Programme – on Saturday during the public launch of the party's election manifesto in Mpumalanga. He said most of the work opportunities would be reserved for young people.
Statistics SA's latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, released in October, revealed that 3.3 million of the 10.4 million youth aged between 15 and 24 years were unemployed and were unable to access training opportunities.
Reference to work opportunities or job opportunities has increasingly found expression in government rhetoric, particularly problematic as the term implies that the jobs to be created would be temporary as opposed to permanent.
The latest measure to absorb unemployed youth into the mainstream economy follows the adoption of the Employment Tax Incentive Act, offering tax breaks to companies that employ young people.
The government has also signed numerous accords to boost youth employment, including the basic education accord, national skills accord, local procurement accord, green economy accord and the October 2012 accord. A further five million jobs were promised, first by 2020 and then 2030, as part of the National Development Plan.
Analysts Dr Somadoda Fikeni and Andrew Levy agreed that the lack of proper jobs presented a less than ideal situation, but any type of employment created was "better than nothing".
"In a situation like ours, anything is better than nothing. Anyone would be saying: 'Let's accept any movement in this space [unemployment].' That is crucial in our economy that is battling to create decent [permanent] jobs," Fikeni said.
Fikeni said increased levels of youth unemployed could cause further social upheaval. "Anything that can be used to prevent these things is worthy to be tried. The more SA youths feel they are being excluded, imagine the reaction [there] will be."
The problem, he said, was that the ANC "has always promised jobs, decent jobs" but "they have now started talking about job opportunities".
Fikeni said this did not represent a shift away from permanent jobs but rather a "desperate attempt to seek a solution to a desperate situation".
Levy felt that Zuma's "work opportunities" had the potential to become permanent in future. "Any job is good. That will do a lot to alleviate unemployment."