Minimum wage will grow jobless figures‚ says DA

In a parliamentary debate on Wednesday‚ the Democratic Alliance’s Ian Ollis argued that a national minimum wage would increase unemployment.

The DA’s shadow minister of labour said a minimum wage might help those who already have jobs‚ but would do nothing for the 8.4-million South Africans who were not employed.

“The national minimum wage debate does exactly the wrong thing. It attempts to ease our consciences appearing to do something for the poor‚ when actually we are just making it more difficult for those 8.4 million unemployed people to get jobs or just plain ignoring them completely‚” said Ollis.

He said the DA was not against the idea of a minimum wage‚ but it was against the use of the process to buy votes‚ which it accused the ANC of doing.

Instead‚ he said‚ minimum wages “must be sector specific to curb job losses in marginal industries such as textiles and more recently steel‚ as well as those where rapid increases will lead to job losses such as agriculture‚ security services and domestic work”.

He said sectoral wages should be set by an independent Minimum Wage Commission‚ made up of experts in economics and international labour policy.

He cited the agricultural sector as having suffered massive job losses as a result of radical increases in minimum wages.

“The DA believes that we need to exempt students‚ the youth and interns from minimum wages as well as workers applying for jobs in small and micro enterprises in order to help people with no experience get their first job. If you don’t‚ minimum wages will lock out those who don’t have experience.”

He said the EFF’s demand for a R4500 minimum wage would see 1.6-million people losing their jobs over a three-year period.

RDM News Wire.