DA warned ANC, Cosatu

It is rather rich for Cosatu to now be shouting from the treetops that 9.3-million people need jobs.

Some of my colleagues and I in the labour portfolio in parliament spent much of 2018 warning the ANC and Cosatu that we should be expecting a “jobs bloodbath” in 2019.

We outlined carefully that the harsh labour regulatory regime, coupled with enormous corruption, will create an environment whereby employees will be retrenched in their thousands. We then outlined that the advent of the national minimum wage would take that environment one step further to create the perfect storm. Even the Treasury warned that the minimum wage could lead to the loss of 750,000 jobs.

I specifically stated on numerous occasions to Cosatu that they must not complain thereafter as the implementation of the national minimum wage and the consequent retrenchments would not be “unintended consequences”.

We in the DA specifically outlined that there should be a minimum wage per industry so as to ensure the increases would be sustainable in each specific sector. One always understands that the wages are low and certainly not ideal. However, if one lifts the wage too high it leads to staff reduction. This natural consequence has led me to state that the actual minimum wage in SA is nought rand per hour.

We are all going to the polls on May 8, and I am pleading with every South African who has been touched by unemployment to make their cross to show that the current situation is not acceptable.

Michael Bagraim DA shadow minister of labour