Does President Cyril Ramaphosa have a plan to tackle unemployment?
That is the question posed by the DA in response to the latest figures from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for Q3 2021, which revealed SA’s unemployment rate had hit a new high of 34.9%.
The Stats SA report released on Tuesday laid bare the extent of joblessness in the country.
It revealed the number of employed people decreased by 660,000 in the third quarter to 14.3-million.
The official unemployment rate increased from 34.4% in the second quarter to 34.9% in the third quarter. This is the highest since the start of the report in 2008.
The DA expressed little hope the ruling party would take progressive measures to tackle unemployment with the urgency required.
It said among the measures needed to address the crisis are fixing the power utility Eskom and doing away with lockdowns implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Instead the government is likely to do nothing, or carry on doing the wrong things,” said the DA.
“President Ramaphosa’s government needs to take the hard decisions that will begin to arrest our economic decline, like abandoning the malevolent mining charter, fixing Eskom and bolstering our energy supply.
“Load-shedding is having a devastating effect on the economy and jobs. The government should ditch its hare-brained localisation scheme, which will lead to further job losses. Meanwhile, any further lockdown restrictions over the coming months will cripple the economy,” said the DA.
The party said job losses followed the July unrest and looting, and lamented no-one had been “brought to book for masterminding the mayhem” that resulted in billions of rand in losses for businesses that were looted or destroyed.
What will Ramaphosa do? DA lashes out at government over record high unemployment
Image: Lubabalo Lesolle
Does President Cyril Ramaphosa have a plan to tackle unemployment?
That is the question posed by the DA in response to the latest figures from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for Q3 2021, which revealed SA’s unemployment rate had hit a new high of 34.9%.
The Stats SA report released on Tuesday laid bare the extent of joblessness in the country.
It revealed the number of employed people decreased by 660,000 in the third quarter to 14.3-million.
The official unemployment rate increased from 34.4% in the second quarter to 34.9% in the third quarter. This is the highest since the start of the report in 2008.
The DA expressed little hope the ruling party would take progressive measures to tackle unemployment with the urgency required.
It said among the measures needed to address the crisis are fixing the power utility Eskom and doing away with lockdowns implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Instead the government is likely to do nothing, or carry on doing the wrong things,” said the DA.
“President Ramaphosa’s government needs to take the hard decisions that will begin to arrest our economic decline, like abandoning the malevolent mining charter, fixing Eskom and bolstering our energy supply.
“Load-shedding is having a devastating effect on the economy and jobs. The government should ditch its hare-brained localisation scheme, which will lead to further job losses. Meanwhile, any further lockdown restrictions over the coming months will cripple the economy,” said the DA.
The party said job losses followed the July unrest and looting, and lamented no-one had been “brought to book for masterminding the mayhem” that resulted in billions of rand in losses for businesses that were looted or destroyed.
‘The new dawn is a fraud’: Maimane and EFF weigh in on increasing youth unemployment
WATCH LIVE | Stats SA releases latest job figures
Jobs bloodbath: 7 out of 8 industries recorded employment losses
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Most read
Latest Videos