Bloomberg News reports that according to SA Reserve Bank deputy governor Rashad Cassim, SA’s economy needs to expand consistently at 5% for years to create jobs and lower an unemployment rate that is among the world’s highest.

But, for an economy that expanded at an average rate of 1% in the past decade and is being buffeted by rolling electricity outages, labour unrest and transport bottlenecks, accelerating growth to 5% may be a challenge. “Going from a 1% economy to 3% isn’t rocket science for SA. Unfortunately, 3% gets the economy going, but it will not bring unemployment down. To get unemployment down, we really need systematic 5% growth every year and that’s a different debate,” Cassim commented on Tuesday. The unemployment rate is presently 33.9% – the highest on a list of 82 countries and the eurozone monitored by Bloomberg. The International Monetary Fund projects that SA’s jobless rate will reach 35.2% in 2022, which will be the highest in the world (though data for some countries is unavailable).

• Read the original of the short report in the above regard by Amogelang Mbatha at BusinessLive

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