Government ministries have to develop a comprehensive jobs plan in time for the October summit, reports Madeleine Wackernagel
WHILE the furore over the Basic Conditions of Employment Bill continues unabated, the Minister of Labour Tito Mboweni will have his hands full in the next two months with an additional task: overseeing the development of a “put South Africa back to work” policy before the October Jobs Summit.
An inter-ministerial committee is being set up to devise and co-ordinate employment policy between various departments in time for the Presidential Jobs Summit, recently approved by Cabinet and scheduled for October. The employment strategy will then be discussed with the government’s social partners – representatives of business and labour – at the summit and hopefully, put into practice.
The departments of labour, trade and industry, finance, public works, agriculture and land affairs, provincial affairs and constitutional development will all be called upon for their input, and specifically, how they will individually budget for and implement job-creation policies.
Government favours labour-intensive activities, with agriculture and agro- processing, services, including tourism, and construction the obvious candidates. In addition, it is looking at boosting institutional support for small, medium and micro enterprises, as well as social policies to help the poorest by keeping down the basic costs of food and housing.
But labour has to play its part: programmes to boost skills and productivity are also on the cards, as is reform of labour market policies to promote more efficient deployment.
The responsibility for making this plan work lies with the Department of Labour, as convenor. It will also be funding the estimated R2-million cost of the summit and pre-summit policy development out of its budget.
Says a department source: “We were tasked with coming up with a job-creation strategy under the Reconstruction and Development Programme, and that’s what we’re doing, along with the other departments. This move also follows the recommendations of the Labour Market Commission.
“It’s one thing to have dispersed policies; what we need now is a comprehensive programme, which takes a holistic approach to employment creation in this country.”
Certainly the government is well aware of the perils of paralysis on this subject. According to government documents, “the failure to create employment on a very large scale will necessarily lead to a rapid increase in unemployment in the coming years … Such an outcome would spell rising poverty, social disruption and crime, potentially leading into a vicious cycle of social and economic decline.”
But there is no room for a government spending spree to alleviate an unemployment rate estimated at 35% – employment policy must fit in with the overall framework of the government’s growth, employment and redistribution strategy, which emphasises fiscal restraint.
The Labour Market Commission’s report, however, does highlight the fine balancing act between fiscal and monetary imperatives and employment generation. Tight fiscal and monetary policies may reassure foreign and local investors and keep inflation under control but do little to stimulate employment. “If contractionary policies prove unavoidable, then only much more vigorous implementation of structural measures to stimulate employment can ensure job creation,” says the report.
The question then is how to stimulate employment while also becoming more competitive on the global stage – and the extent to which government must play a role in redirecting resources.
Government thinking on the subject points to a more interventionist line, with targets for combining capital- and labour-intensive sectors while ensuring competitiveness and maximising job opportunities; supply-side programmes to stimulate labour-intensive production; the acquisition and redistribution of assets, including land; skills development; public works; and institutional structures to enhance economic change and ensure delivery.
The ministerial commission will meet within the next three weeks to discuss the initial proposals as set out by the labour department. These will then be fine-tuned and presented to the October summit. Before then, however, the social partners will have to overcome the Employment Bill hurdle; it is due to be passed in September. Labour department sources say the Bill will not be thrown out if agreement cannot be reached, but rather it may be refocused so that the interests of the most vulnerable are still protected.