The government says it intends to create five million jobs over the next decade with a “New Growth Path” plan.
It aimed to reduce unemployment from 25% to 15%, Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane told reporters at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Tuesday.
He was speaking after a special Cabinet meeting on Monday.
Details would be progressively released as various affected parties became involved, he said, but the plan aimed at “unlocking employment potential” in six key areas.
These were infrastructure, agriculture, mining, the green economy, manufacturing and tourism, together with high-level service industries.
“In each of these areas clear targets of the jobs potential have been developed and state agencies have now been directed to work on implementation plans,” he said.
Chabane made the announcement of the plan together with Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel and their rural development and land affairs colleague, Gugile Nkwinti.
He said that the commodity boom in earlier years had not resulted in revenue being sufficiently applied to promote economic diversification and skills development.
Review of BEE
The plan “calls for a major review of the operation of BEE [black economic empowerment] to ensure that empowerment is integrated with growth and employment imperatives”. He did not provide any further details on the BEE review.
The leadership of labour and business, and community leaders, would first be briefed about the plan, after which further details would be released.
Chabane said the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) had been tasked with raising the necessary capital to drive the growth of the green industrial economy, and Patel added that the IDC had already set aside R12-billion for that purpose.
Various departments would be required to draw up coordinated policies and programmes as well as implementation plans that would be submitted to Cabinet over the next six months.
Patel said more details would be released by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement on Wednesday.
He said the plan also included initiatives to tackle the current low rate of domestic savings, which resulted in the country having to import capital to finance major development projects.
Implementing the plan was a major challenge that had been dealt with at Monday’s special Cabinet meeting.
Developing the necessary skills and improving education was also critical to the success of the New Growth Path.
This, Patel said, included bringing in skills from outside the country as well as developing skills locally.
He said it was critical to get farmers producing beyond a subsistence level.
Asked if the plan included nationalisation, Patel said: “The growth path is based on the framework of a mixed economy. It does see a role for a strong and focused state, but we see the biggest job creation will come from sectors where the private sector has the key levers.”
Funding
Chabane said that full details of the New Growth Path would be eventually released, but only once all stakeholders had been consulted.
Funding the plan would come from a combination of partnerships between the state, state-owned enterprises and the private sector.
At the start of the press conference, government spokesperson Themba Maseko poured cold water on speculation that a Cabinet reshuffle had also been on the agenda.
“The purpose of the meeting yesterday [Monday] was to discuss economic growth and nothing else,” he said.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for the third quarter of 2010 was virtually unchanged at 25,3%, Statistics South African said on Tuesday.
The results showed employment contracted by 0,7% or 86 000 jobs, between the second and third quarters of 2010. The number of discouraged work seekers increased 4,9%, or 95 000 people, the Pretoria-based agency said in its Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the third quarter of 2010.– Sapa