Looking for innovative solutions to the unemployment crisis

The unemployment rate in the first quarter of the year declined by 0.8% to 34.5%. This was announced on 31 May 2022, by Statistics South Africa. A report by Statistics South Africa states that about 360 000 more people were employed in the country in the first quarter of this year, but the unemployment rate is still very high.

Professor Derick Blaauw from the School of Economics at NWU, said, “government and the private sector need to create an economic environment that is conducive to business activities. Employment creation should be at the top of the government’s agenda.” 

He added that increased cooperation between business and government is paramount. There is a big debate about whose job it is to create jobs. Employment is created if there is a demand for the goods and services produced by the labour market.

Professor Andrea Saayman, economics and management professor at the NWU Potchefstroom campus, said, “some economists highlight the role of minimum wages and labour union activity as a cause of increased labour cost.” She added that many workers are also being replaced by machines.  

She explained that these changes are the result of a number of factors, amongst others, the process of globalisation and the need to be able to compete internationally. The history of South Africa has also had a profound impact on both the geographical mobility and skills of the South African population, while the labour policies are not flexible and conducive to employment creation.

As the demand for more job creation expands, added solutions can contribute to the growth of labour, if the proper policies are put into place.

Phinda Khanyi, a resident of Gauteng, said that, “the first area to start from in addressing and tackling unemployment is fixing the education system and beginning to provide applied skills that young people can use in either starting up their own businesses as entrepreneurs or being more employable to be taken in the work system.” 

She also stated that there are leadership policies put into place, however, they lack the willpower for execution because some people who are given those responsibilities are under-skilled. The only hope people currently have is the ability to use every skill they have in networking within the private sector to grow small start-up businesses.

Kamogelo Malegasa, bachelor of law graduate from the University of Limpopo, said that, “government needs to make funding more accessible and create an environment that would allow businesses to grow and employ more people. Entry-level jobs should require no experience at all. There needs to be an adjustment in the academic curriculum to suit the job market by moving more towards practical training rather than theoretical training.”

“In the next five years there is a possibility that many jobs will be industrialised [become automated] and many positions that we have now will be redundant and obsolete,” said Malegasa.

He continues to hope for a better South Africa in the near future and said that, “thanks to globalisation and technology, I foresee a future with borderless employment. Today, people work digitally in Europe from their homes in South African townships on their laptops. Therefore, as much as the 4^th  industrial revolution (4IR) has its disadvantages, it also has its advantages that we’ve never imagined.”