This illustration brings us to probably one of the critical costs of unemployment. In the introduction section of this work, we mentioned that South Africa currently faces the challenge of a bulging youth population that has increasingly become violent. The violence leads to loss of life as well as economic destruction. In addition, the loss in person-‐hours of the productive and active population has negative impacts on the economy. During our time in Khayelitsha, we got to experience two waves of ‘service protest’, each spanning a number of weeks. Each of the waves was due to lack of a given service, and led to loss of lives and property.
This study clearly shows it is very taxing for someone to find a job, in terms of time, money and even emotion.
As stated, unemployment – more particularly, youth unemployment – is a significant problem. From both the literature and my own lived-‐in experience, it is clear that the problem needs calculated, targeted effort to address it adequately. This necessitates a combination of initiatives requiring direct state involvement, private sector partnerships, and the mobilisation of civil society to take a proactive interest in addressing the problems presented by unemployment [177].
4.6.1. GO V E R N M E N T IN T E R V E N T IO N S
When freedom was attained in 1994, South Africa inherited a problem of structural
unemployment, which goes back to the 1970s … Unemployment continued to deteriorate in the 1990s and the early 2000s … let us all join hands as we deal decisively with the triple
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challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. Nobody will do this for us; it is in our hands." – President Jacob Zuma, 2012, State of the Nation Address
South Africa, while regarded as an ‘upper middle-‐class’ economy globally, and a super-‐
economy in Africa, is still a very young democracy, facing a lot of social and welfare issues [166], [178]. This is something the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is well aware of, and seemingly actively working on. As stated in the their 2004 Election Manifesto, dubbed
‘a people’s contract to create work and fight poverty’ [179], which was later converted into South Africa’s National Action Plan, dubbed ‘Vision 2014’, some of their most important targets and objectives included:
• Reduce unemployment by half through new jobs, skills development, assistance to small businesses, opportunities for self-‐employment and sustainable-‐community livelihoods.
• Reduce poverty by half through economic development, comprehensive social security, land reform and improved household and community assets.
This is echoed in the ANC’s 2009 election manifesto, which was translated into the government’s Medium-‐Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) for 2009-‐2014. The summary, in part, reads:
“Our Manifesto reflects on the major challenges facing our society – high unemployment, poverty, deepening inequality and rural marginalisation. As a response to these challenges our Manifesto identifies the following five priority areas for the ANC government in the next five years:
• Creation of decent work and sustainable livelihoods;
• Education;
• Health;
• Crime;
• Rural development, including land reform, and food production and security.
… In this regard, the creation and retention of decent work and sustainable livelihoods will be the primary focus of all economic policies of the ANC government.”
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From both manifestos and action plans, unemployment is perhaps the most prominent welfare challenge facing post-‐apartheid South Africa. South Africa’s commitment to reducing the country’s unemployment saw the government declare 2011 the Year of Job Creation. It put initiatives in place including the allocation of a ZAR9-‐billion Jobs Fund to encourage new initiatives both inside and outside of government. 2011 was also a year for giving effect to the ethos of ‘Working Together’, with a number of initiatives now committing government and various sectors to taking the country forward [180]. These include:
• Deepening social dialogue and partnership within the ambit of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC).
• A historic Skills Accord, committing business and the state to enrolling at least 30 000 artisan trainees in training programmes over the next 12 months.
• A Green Economy Accord between government and economic sectors, paving the way for new economic activity, and jobs linked to make South Africa more responsive to the effects of climate change.
• A Basic Education Accord in terms of which government, business and labour will work together to improve learning and teaching in the country.
• A Local Procurement Accord committing social partners to working together to increase local procurement.
The Employment Services Bill
The most crucial of these initiatives is the proposed legislation dubbed the ‘Employment Services Bill’ of 2010 [181]. The draft bill provides for the establishment of public employment services (PES), whose role and core functions will be governance, via an Employment Services Board, of:
• Decent work schemes to promote youth employment;
• Promotion of employment of people with disabilities;
• Employment promotion schemes responding to economic recession, company closures and pending retrenchments or lay-‐offs; and
• Regulation of employment of foreign workers.
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The Community Work Programme
The Community Work Programme (CWP) [182] is an employment safety net, providing participants with a minimum number of days of regular work (typically two days a week or eight days a month). This provides a basic level of income security through work. It recognises that unemployment in South Africa is deeply structural, and that important as they are, policies to create decent work will take time to reach the most marginalised areas of the country. The programme is implemented at local level and designed around a site, which is between two and 10 wards of a local municipality or the metropolitan equivalent.
The target is to create ‘useful’ work for 1 000 people per site on a part-‐time basis.
4.6.2. PR IV A T E IN T E R V E N T IO N S
Initiatives among development practitioners in civil society (represented by NGOs and community-‐based organisations) are in line with what the government is doing. Other than lobbying for government to provide a longer-‐lasting solution to unemployment through such initiatives as the Employment Services Bill, NGOs are also assisting communities to access some of the initiatives the government has put in place (including the CWP); or creating similar opportunities, with government back-‐up. Furthermore, NGOs are helping communities access meaningful employment through offering employment placement services, as well as skills-‐development opportunities, where job-‐seekers are able to learn skills to complement their limited education.
Given the information presented in this chapter, unemployment in South Africa is a serious problem. In total, the challenge appears insurmountable, in the context of a short-‐lived PhD dissertation. However, we believe that in addressing unemployment – specifically youth unemployment – there is an urgent need for both short-‐ and long-‐term initiatives that address the mounting demands of labour, improve education and skills, and apply labour-‐
market interventions that improve the employability of young people. The first of these could be cutting the costs of job-‐seeking by increasing the visibility of potential
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employment opportunities, and encouraging the youthful who have become discouraged to engage actively in seeking employment.