By Odwa Mkentane
South Africa’s unemployment crisis is coming under renewed scrutiny, with concerns that the country is failing to create enough jobs to keep pace with the growing labour force. Economist Duma Gqubule says the problem goes beyond a skills mismatch, pointing to unemployed graduates in critical professions while public services continue to face shortages.
Gqubule says that over the past 17 years, South Africa has created only about two million jobs, while the labour force grows by 600,000 to 700,000 people every year.
“We need a 4% to 6% GDP growth rate just for the 600,000 people who are joining the workforce,” Gqubule said. “Even with a growth rate of 6%, we will still have high unemployment, so we have to do more than just grow the economy faster. We need strong industrial policies to create labour-intensive sectors. We have to rapidly expand public employment programmes.”
He rejected the idea that the country suffers from a skills mismatch, pointing out that unemployed graduate doctors and nurses are sitting at home while public hospitals face severe shortages of exactly those skills.
“Cutting public spending on infrastructure, healthcare and education,” he argued, “makes unemployment worse, because when the state fails to invest in roads and railways, the private sector will not invest either.” He also criticised the cancellation of the Presidential Employment Stimulus, which created over two million work opportunities, he said.
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