OPINION: A GRAND PACT IS NEEDED TO RISE TO THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY OF SA’S JOBS CRISIS

TIMES LIVE / 05 DECEMBER 2021 - 00:00 / BY COLIN COLEMAN

SA’s unemployment disaster is a political and moral crisis and requires a drastic response to avoid prevent another violent rupture

The latest unemployment numbers released by Stats SA in its Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) this week spurred Peter Bruce, hardly a radical, in his column for Business Day, to suggest that such news, in any nation, should be cause for the immediate resignation of the government. The economy since January 2020, reported the QLFS, had shed 100,000 jobs per month — tsunami of total job losses in this period of 2.2-million!

Now, 12.5-million South Africans are without a job or income, and those employed have fallen since January 2020 from 16.4-million to 14.2-million, a broad unemployment rate now of a horrifying 46.6%. In any country this would be declared a national economic emergency, and the leaders of society would be summoned to design a national emergency response. Shockingly, the leaders of society’s response this week was overwhelmingly, well, silence...

CONTINUE READING HERE : https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/opinion-and-analysis/opinion/2021-12-05-a-grand-pact-is-needed-to-rise-to-the-national-emergency-of-sas-jobs-crisis/

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