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Engineering News reports that business organisations Business Unity SA (Busa) and Business Leadership SA (BLSA) said in separate statements that the unemployment figures released on Tuesday reflected a structural crisis.
Busa CEO Cas Coovadia stated: "South Africa's unemployment rates are among the highest in the world, if not the highest. We have experienced unemployment rates of over 20% for the last two decades, which demonstrates that we have structural unemployment." BLSA CEO Busi Mavuso noted: "Having reached a record high of 34.4%, South Africa’s unemployment rate has surged to the highest on a global list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg. The structural unemployment crisis and underperforming economy can only be addressed by swift and decisive action by all social partners." The organisations stated that the measures undertaken by the state to safeguard the economy were clearly in need of urgent review. Busa said that the only sustainable way to address unemployment was by enabling businesses to grow and be profitable, which required an environment in which businesses were confident to make long-term job-creating investments. The government needed to make structural interventions in the economy to attract investment and make it easier for businesses to start, grow and employ people, said Coovadia. He pointed out that some of these interventions were changes to labour regulations, making it easier to start a business, policy certainty, political stability, rule of law and security, releasing spectrum, moving with urgency towards renewable energy and others.
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