The Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) should be able to contribute meaningfully in answering why South Africa’s unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, at 27.7%, Deputy President David Mabuza said on Friday.
 
Addressing delegates at the twentieth HRDC meeting, in Johannesburg, he noted that, last month, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) had painted a bleak picture about the status of young South Africans, showing that one in three young people were not in employment, education or training (NEETs).
 
“In May, Stats SA reported that, in the first quarter of 2018, South Africa’s NEETs comprised 3.3-million people aged between 15 and 24 years. Our plans for the future must urgently address the plight of these young people. Behind these figures and statistics, are dreams of young people that are sadly going to waste,” he said.

Mabuza added that, globally, it has become apparent that the development of small, medium-sized and microenterprises was key to reducing poverty and unemployment.

“We are also fully committed to sharpening our policy instruments to address the critical and scarce skills that our nation faces.

“To succeed, it means that the Department of labour, Stats SA, academia and industry should work even [more closely] to identify critical skills shortages and the misalignments in the country’s demand and supply of these critical skills,” Mabuza noted.
 
He highlighted that South Africa required more in-depth and evidence-based research on the number of artisans required in various fields.
 
He stated that it was also important to understand the demands of the modern global economy.

“It is increasingly a knowledge-based economy, shaped around the big data and technological disruptions.”
 
Most importantly, Mabuza said it was a modern global economy where traditional boundaries and disciplines were increasingly dissolving, overlapping and redefining specialisations.
 
“Even as we embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution and plan to succeed in it, we must be mindful that many of our people remain poor and underskilled.”
 
He pointed out that South Africa’s Industrial Policy Action Plan enjoined the country to incentivise investments in labour-absorbing industries.

“As we master these new robots and thrive in technological disruptions, we must simultaneously resist the uncritical displacement of vulnerable and underskilled workers,” he said.