Debate on the Premier’s Report on Solving Youth Unemployment and Mass Employment Creation

Hon. Premier employment creation locally, means assessing the causes of unemployment. A recent study on youth in Durban townships discovered the following:
- Lack of relevant skills and qualifications
- Lack of relevant previous work experience
- High rate of corruption, nepotism and connections in the labour market
Hon. members, to combat the impact of unemployment, we must ensure:
- all work or labour policies to spur employment must expand employment opportunities by prioritising temporary employment measures
- Provide good- quality housing so people have a roof above their head as personal security promotes well-being and employability
- Increase recreational activities by improving sporting and such facilities, so stop building on playlots or parks
- Increase access to public transport; let’s not limit ourselves to taxis as buses, trains, bicycles, motor-cycles need road redesigns because people mobility for employment is vital.
- Expand public services and schools in rural areas where there is high unemployment.
To create jobs Hon. Premier, we need to:
- Remove racism from racial quotas. As per the Constitution, Black means African, Indians and Coloureds. The MF rejects further race-based job quotas instead we need to move to economic class quotas based on poverty levels, as well as the remainder on meritocracy.
- We need an annual job fair in KZN.
- SARS needs to increase the 2014 ETI incentives to employers so that more workers can be employed apart from hiring entrants/ graduates only.
- Our workplace culture needs to be redefined to one that is agile and culturally inclusive. For this both public and private sectors needs to employ cultural intelligence officers to socially and culturally integrate work teams for maximum work output.
- We need to integrate SETA’s with poly techs because SETA’s policy must change to include training opportunities for all race- groups not only Black African as this hinders social cohesion. Take the e.g.: the case of pilots- do an assessment of how many pilots we have produced with this grant given from 2009 onward. Indian students cannot access this grant and are undergoing severe economic hardships.
- Finally, much more needs to be done by the private sector in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and this law needs to be strengthened, especially with respect to the multi-nationals.
The MF hopes the above recommendations are taken seriously, Hon. Premier.
Thank you.