/ 17 January 2011

Plan for job creation revealed

Plan For Job Creation Revealed

The rural development department will bear the biggest brunt from the new job-creation targets set by the ANC for the next 10 years, the ruling party revealed on Monday. The department is set to produce half-a-million jobs in the next decade.

Following the party’s annual lekgotla, a list of targets was presented to reporters at Luthuli House to show the party’s enthusiasm for job creation, which President Jacob Zuma put at the top of the party’s priority list this year.

Broad-based manufacturing — which will not include agriculture — will create 350 000 jobs in the next 10 years while the green economy is expected to turn out 300 000 jobs. A quarter-of-a-million jobs will be created through infrastructure development while the public service will be inflated by 10% to create more jobs.

The tourism sector is expected to produce 225 000 jobs while the mining industry will be responsible for 140 000, which is the same as the target for the knowledge economy, which include information communication and biotechnology.

The social economy, which includes social investment vehicles, will have to create 260 000 while African regional development, which is mainly exports of goods and services, will create 150 000.

But despite the lofty targets it seems as if the sticky issue will remain whether these jobs will be “decent jobs” which, according to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), mean they are permanent and come with benefits.

Criticisms and suggestions
ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe would not say whether these jobs will meet the requirements Cosatu had set.

“Our view is that jobs must be created. Once people are employed they can negotiate conditions, but initially they will enter the jobs with the conditions that are set by the sector.”

According to Mantashe it is “decent” to have “meaningful and gainful employment”.

“There is nothing as undignified as being unemployed,” he said.

ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu played down weekend reports that said Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi was attacked for his criticism of the new growth path (NGP) at last week’s lekgotla.

Mthembu conceded there were “criticisms and suggestions in the debate”, and Mantashe added the criticism of the NGP did not come only from Cosatu but also from ANC leaders. He declined to elaborate.

The new growth framework document released to Parliament in November last year by Minister of Economic Development Ebrahim Patel, sets a very ambitious target — the creation of five-million jobs in 10 years. To do this it proposes a host of measures, both macro and micro-economic, that will require a broad social compact between labour, business and the government, if they are to work.

The NGP sets out a broad accord on wages, proposes caps for executives and highly paid executives, with inflation-linked increases for low- to middle-income earners. It also calls for looser monetary policy by the Reserve Bank and the allocation of a “prudent” portion of retirement funds to developmental and growth-oriented investments.