South Africa's public employment crisis: the need for urgent action
When unemployment is at its highest, government needs to ramp up not cut back on public employment and employment programmes.
Cosatu alongside the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu), was deeply distraught by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs’ (Cogta) December announcement that 67 000 Community Works Programme (CWP) workers above the age of 55 years would be dismissed due to budget constraints.
This was a devastating blow to these workers and their 450 000 dependants. They will not find work in an economy with a 41.9% unemployment rate. A majority of these workers are under 60 years and thus not eligible to receive the Old Age Grant.
We have been distressed by massive cuts to the Presidential Employment Programme over the past two years from a peak of R36 billion to a meagre R3.5 billion.
Similarly, despite ill-informed neo-liberal propaganda about a bloated state, workers have experienced the opposite.
In 1994 with 34 million citizens, South Africa had just over 1 million public servants. Today whilst the population has nearly doubled to 64 million people, the public service has not kept pace at approximately 1.2 million positions with 70 000 vacancies.
Frontline positions have been left unfilled creating critical nursing and doctor vacancies in hospitals. The ratio of teachers to learners has risen at alarming rates. The SAPS headcount has declined from over 200 000 a decade ago to about 170 000 today yet population and crime levels have grown.
The government, led by the ANC, has shown through investing in SA Revenue Service (Sars) that if competent management is appointed, corrupt elements are removed, critical vacancies are filled, staff skills and infrastructure are invested in; the state will deliver the world class services that society and the economy depend upon.
Today the employees of Sars have enabled it to tackle widespread tax evasion, in particular by the wealthy and criminals. Their work has enabled the state to receive taxes needed to fund public services society requires. Revenue shortfalls and the deficit have begun to decline.
Many of the public employment programmes have experienced real challenges in terms of the skills, training and experience offered to participants, and thus their chances of finding employment upon exiting them are minimal to non-existent.
Some public employment programmes have been abused by Councillors as a source of patronage. Some have seen profiteering and corruption by service providers hired to run them. Most pay below the minimum wage. Some have been used by financially struggling municipalities to perform functions that should be done by permanent positions.
All of these challenges need to be resolved, however the most urgent one is the fate of the 67 000 CWP employees above 55 years.
Cosatu and Samwu met with the Minister and Deputy Minister for Cogta and their management team this week to find solutions for the CWP. We are optimistic that solutions can and will be found for them.
Once this matter is resolved, a broader discussion is needed about the overhaul of the various public employment programmes. We need to ensure that the real skills, training and experience provided to participants are linked to job opportunities elsewhere, e.g. digitisation work at Home Affairs can help young people later find work in an economy where IT and AI skills will increasingly be required. Teaching assistants programme can set its participants on the path to become educators. The Department of Employment and Labour’s proposal to hire 20 000 labour inspectors can equip them for future jobs in human resources, the CCMA and related labour market positions.
A hybrid approach is needed that caters for a safety net for those unlikely to find work and an employment path for those able to.
Matters of corruption, patronage, naked profiteering and wastage need to be dealt with. No participants must earn below the National Minimum Wage.
Public and private sector funds should be pooled together to fund these, including from the fiscus, Unemployment Insurance Fund, the Public Investment Corporation, the SETAs and the National Skills Fund.
The public service too must play its part. Critical frontline vacancies, in particular doctors, nurses and other health professionals, police and correctional services officers, teachers, Home Affairs, SARS amongst others need to be given the resources needed to fill vacancies.
Where positions must be cut, let it be among public representatives and Members of the National, Provincial and Municipal Cabinet and Executive Councils. Where positions need to be frozen, let it be amongst Directors-General and the plethora of executive management.
The private sector must come to the party as the state will never have enough resources on its own to solve our many existential crises. This requires the private sector to make real commitments and not simply shift the blame to government and offer meaningless platitudes.
We need the private sector to commit to halting retrenchments and to look for alternatives as mandated by the Labour Relations Act. Businesses need to support locally produced goods thus helping to sustain South African companies, value chains, jobs and communities.
State-Owned Enterprises and listed companies now need to not only comply with the recently promulgated Companies Amendment Act requiring them to disclose the wage gap between the obscene packages of their top 5% and the pittances they pay to their lowest 5% earners, but to pay their employees a living wage and reduce the shameful gap.
The private sector needs to take advantage of the funds available through the SETAs to invest in the skills of their staff thus boosting productivity but also their career paths and earning potential as well as to aggressively hire young first-time employees as interns and artisans.
Our 41.9% general and 70% youth unemployment are our single greatest threat as a nation. It is a ticking time bomb none of us can afford to ignore.
2025 needs to be the year when government and all social partners declare war on it and as we did with Covid-19, unleash a radical well-resourced Marshall Plan to defeat it.
Cosatu General Secretary Solly Phetoe
BUSINESS REPORT