Significant progress in creating jobs was not expected this year, the Presidency said on Thursday.
Outlining the Asgisa (Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa) annual report, deputy head in the policy unit, Alan Hirsch, said with the country’s 1,2% current growth rate, the job market was expected to take a knock.
”It’s not absolutely clear what the overall trend is, but clearly we won’t be able to create as many jobs this year as we did in previous years.”
He said the job market was at its peak between 2004 and 2006.
”This year we don’t expect significant progress.”
When asked if Asgisa needed to relook at its objectives to halve poverty and unemployment by 2014, he said there were no indications that these were impossible.
”Nobody can say for certain how deep and how long the current crisis is going to last.”
However, he said the post-election government would have to consider whether they would reach the goals.
The global economic recession had also led to a recent downturn in job losses and skills development.
Referring to the programmes designed to support Asgisa, Hirsch said the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa) had covered a lot of ground, however the country could not deny that it had been unscathed by the financial crisis.
”The global economic recession has obviously resulted in job losses. There really are some disturbing trends in some industries.”
This had affected Jipsa’s goals as training budgets were often the first to be slashed in times of economic recession.
There was also risk of a decline in investment in training and human resources development in the immediate future.
He said when the economy recovered, companies would once again be unable to recruit suitably skilled people unless Jipsa’s momentum continued.
”I don’t think any of us believe that this recession is going to go on forever, so Jipsa, we need to ensure that we can’t reduce our commitment to training during this vulnerable period,” said Hirsch. – Sapa