Rustenburg - The National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Nafcoc) in the North West has called for innovative ways to create sustainable new jobs.
“The Chamber has noted with deep concern the escalating unemployment figures as released by Stats SA earlier on Tuesday. We believe that we need innovative ways to create sustainable new jobs, especially for young people,” said spokesperson Tshepang Ramosepele.
According to Stats SA, the North West province has over a million people who are not economically active. Only about 944 000 people are employed in the province, which has a total population of just under four million. The unemployment rate stands at 32.2 percent, Ramosepele said.
He said they welcomed the provincial government’s efforts to create jobs, but were not convinced that such interventions would be sustainable going forward.
“Our contention is that government needs more tax base to be able to sustain the jobs they create, and this is not feasible given the high unemployment rate. Our fear is that, in the long term, government may have to resort to desperate measures, such as raising taxes or borrowing from international funders to sustain the new jobs.
“It also means that service delivery may be compromised to keep up with the public servants’ salary bill.”
He said they were of the view that giving more support to small businesses may be the best way to save the country from the current unemployment bloodbath.
“We believe that small businesses have the potential to create more new jobs without perpetually leeching on government funding.
“We also believe that public procurement should be used as a tool to develop small businesses where they will enjoy a sizeable share to propel them to sustainable levels. The current system where the usual suspects get a bigger portion of the procurement pie does not help us to grow the economy but instead increases the gap between the established and emerging enterprises.”
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