Social justice entity, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and public entity Productivity SA have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on productivity and employment promotion in South Africa as pronounced in the mandate of the Department of Employment and Labour, as well as to advance the Productivity Movement across Africa.
With South Africa’s unemployment rate at 29%, the ILO–Productivity SA partnership aims to support the fulfilment of the 2018 Presidential Job Summit commitment to build more inclusive and cooperative workplace engagements between workers and management in solving workplace problems.
Productivity SA CEO Mothunye Mothiba says the overall goal of this partnership is to work together in promoting a productivity and entrepreneurship culture and consciousness of the need to create decent employment and sustainable enterprises.
The MoU is set to result in interventions within a host of South African companies.
The programmes will be implemented in these companies to enhance productivity and operational efficiency of enterprises with a focus on small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs) and cooperatives to adopt productivity enhancement practices.
Mothiba says SMMEs have tremendous potential to make an impact on sustainable development goals through the employment they create, the business practices they choose to adopt and the sectors in which they operate.
The ILO’s global Sustaining Competitive and Responsible Enterprises, or SCORE, programme will be implemented in the companies and through the signing of this MoU, workers who have been retrenched will be assisted to transit into other occupations and/or self-employment through re-skilling and up-skilling training.
The programmes will be implemented in key sectors that need productivity and competitiveness enhancement assistance and in key priority sectors such as the industrial, agricultural and oceans economies.
ILO director Dr Joni Musabayana says the key pillar upon which the ILO–Productivity SA partnership rests is the support provided to the Bargaining Council on Textile and Manufacturing.
The collaboration is expected to build on the experiences in South Africa on collaboration on productivity issues across Africa in the context of productivity related commitments of the 2015 African Union Declaration and Plan of Action on Employment, Poverty Eradication and Inclusive Development and African Union Agenda 2063.