Jobs: Covid not to blame

Your editorial opinion refers (“Jobless numbers are now a clanging bell”, December 1). Business Day pretends to be critical of the government, but you’re still dancing to the tune of your ANC masters. Here’s the truth.

The unemployment problem in SA has almost nothing to do with Covid-19. This is clear because everywhere else in the world there is economic growth and labour shortages despite even worse Covid-19 problems than ours in many cases.

Any discussion about ways to alleviate unemployment in SA without addressing labour laws and BEE is not worth the paper it is written on. The president’s “reforms” and “job stimulus” are smoke and mirrors — they can barely scrape at the edges of our unemployment problem. They can’t sustain economic growth. The stuff about broadband and the fourth industrial revolution and a new technological city is fantasy. We need jobs for unskilled people, not for skilled IT specialists.

The looting and riots were not a result of political instigators and conspiracies (as President Cyril Ramaphosa would have it). They were the result of poverty, unemployment and frustration with Covid lockdowns. At worst, so-called insurrectionists jumped on the bandwagon, but the many thousands who participated were not conspirators.

Mani None

Via BusinessLIVE

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