Bloomberg News reports that according to SA Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Lesetja Kganyago, persistently high unemployment in SA is a structural problem that the central bank does not have the tools to address and it should be dealt with by changing the nation’s education policy.
“Unemployment in this country is structural,” Kganyago said in an interview in Davos on Tuesday. Policymakers have “got to be alive to the fact” that SA’s education system isn’t equipping learners with the skills needed in a modern era, he opined. The jobless rate for people aged between 15 and 24, which includes school leavers and graduates of universities and training colleges, stands at 34.5%. Unemployment according to the expanded definition, which includes people who are available for work but not looking for a job, is 43.1%. Kganyago’s comments come after ANC chairman Gwede Mantashe said that the party had agreed to change the central bank’s mandate to include job creation. That prospect rattled investors worried that modifications would weaken the SARB’s independence and commitment to its inflation target. President Cyril Ramaphosa later played down suggestions that the change was imminent, while Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said an explicit mention of jobs in the central bank’s remit would not affect its operations.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Prinesha Naidoo at Fin24
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