JOB CREATION STILL A PRIORITY
We need to accelerate inclusive economic growth, create employment and improve the education system
OUR Labour Department has its mandate from the constitution and the Bill of Rights. We are governed by various pieces of labour legislation, including the Labour Relations Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. There are many other pieces of labour legislation, but all of them ensure that we strive for fair and equitable employment and labour peace in the country.
The Labour Department has to ensure that we have economic efficiency and productivity, and that our business community creates decent employment and promotes fundamental rights at work.
With this there must be social safety nets and protection for vulnerable workers. We all strive for sound labour relations and want to eliminate inequality and discrimination in the workplace. The Occupational Health and Safety Act gives the Department of Labour the right to ensure that the workplace is compliant and safe for workers to complete their job. This must all be taken into account to ensure competitiveness of businesses, which in turn need to promote decent employment.
Once a year, the president gives his State of the Nation Address (Sona) and normally looks at the state of employment in South Africa.
Unfortunately, we are suffering from enormous unemployment and imminent retrenchment for a number of reasons. We have a National Development Plan which sets an unemployment goal of 14% by next year. Our government has said that South Africa’s unemployment rate is close to 30%, which equates to almost 10million people.
The whole world is facing economic challenges and this in turn has translated into slow wage growth, coupled with negative employment change.
There was a presidential jobs summit, which made promises of 275000 additional jobs every year. We know that the youth are being looked at and that there are certain paid internship programmes. There’s also an employment incentive tax and the youth employment service, so as to enable youth to enter the labour market.
The business community has to co-operate to ensure this is a success. Many of our youth are thankful that the employment incentive tax has been successful in the past and will be extended for another 10 years.
The Sona this year doesn’t change much from last year, as we know job creation is still a priority.
Unfortunately, our minister of finance didn’t touch on unemployment or job creation, and we know, with the implementation of the national minimum wage agreement, there will be more labour inspectors who are fully trained and capacitated. The director-general of the Department of Labour has said he has requested further financial resources needed to enforce the regulations.
I think every South African knows that we need to accelerate inclusive economic growth, create jobs and improve the education system to improve skills needed by the economy for now and in the future.
It remains to be said that everyone who is in a job needs to ensure they protect it, that they perform to the best of their ability and ensure their productivity remains as high as possible.
The statistics tell us that everyone who has a job is responsible for looking after at least five other people, so it would be reckless to resign or put your job at risk. I often engage with individuals who are only too pleased to take retrenchment packages so as to enable them to access their pension money, outstanding leave pay, notice pay and severance payment.
The argument goes that they have debt and they want to settle it, then they will look for another job. This is not a recommended route at all and, in fact, many individuals experience difficulties finding alternative jobs once they have taken their severance packages.
We all understand the pressure of having debt, but one of the most valuable assets that you have in order to try to tackle your debt in the long run is to ensure that you have ongoing full-time employment.