Engineering News writes that the structure of the SA economy does not allow for the creation of large numbers of jobs, nor can it support a large number of new jobs at appropriate skills levels, the ‘State of Manufacturing 2017’ report has indicated.  

The report, which was released by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on Tuesday, found that one of the major reasons for the inability to create a large number of jobs or skilled professionals lay in the composition of the domestic economy, which, given development challenges, was not appropriately composed in terms of the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.  It also found that labour intensive sectors, in particular, were not growing fast enough to support the creation of a large number of jobs.  A major impediment to creating a large number of jobs in a short time frame was the impact of apartheid-era spatial planning, which the DTI noted was continuing to constrain the domestic economy with detrimental factors.  These included extended travel time and costs, and an inability for companies to run multiple shifts.  In response to the Manufacturing Circle’s ‘Map to a Million New Jobs in a Decade’ report, launched last week, DTI Minister Dr Rob Davies on Tuesday said one-million new jobs seemed like “a big ask”.

• Read this report in full at Engineering News
• See too, SA ‘running out of skills needed for economic growth and development’, at BusinessLive

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