Expert throws down the job gauntlet Bob Kernohan, Business Editor, Weekend Post, Port Elizabeth, 12 May 2009 A TOP academic issued a challenge during a visit to Mandela Bay this week for the newly elected government to consider establishing a programme of providing "decent work for all" as a cornerstone of its policy. Prof Edward Webster, of Wits University's Society, Work and Development Institute, said budgeting for such a programme at a cost of R50 per employee for each day worked, would provide a greater income than the basic welfare grant being suggested. It would also pay off in a number of other areas, ranging from workers regaining their self-esteem to their not having to turn to crime to feed their families. Webster was delivering a key public lecture at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University on the current global crisis. In the case of South Africa, he said, renewed capital inflows were strengthening the rand at present, but the decline in output and job losses was continuing. "We are not likely to see a recovery in the real economy - that is employment - until 2010 at the earliest," Webster predicted. In the meantime, unemployment would harm not only individuals, but also households and communities. It also had to borne in mind that while economic multipliers were usually the focus of job creation, there were also social multipliers. These included decreased crime, enhanced family and community cohesion, strengthened security, better education, healthcare and childcare. To create the jobs needed in South Africa, said Webster, who is a graduate of Rhodes University, the country could not expect only a market economy to provide jobs for all those who wanted to work. An "imaginative" alternative had to be created. "This must involve a central role for the development finance institutions we have inherited from the apartheid state - the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the Land Bank, and the Industrial Development Corporation." He urged that these "become the engine of our public infrastructure developmental strategy and must include re-introducing forms of capital control". "Such a strategy must involve reviving the credit system and providing targeted support to sustainable enterprises, especially micro, small and medium- sized enterprises." Overall, argued Webster, the "central way in which to boost the economy is through employment-oriented interventions". He challenged the government to act on that. It should become the "employer of last resort", meaning that if no other job was available a person would be employed by the state. Webster used as an example a scheme in India, called the national rural employment guarantee, which entitled every rural household to 100 days of work per year. "The budget for this imaginative guarantee of employment in 2006-2007 was 0,33 per cent of gross domestic product," he said, adding that similarly "my hunch is that we could also afford to guarantee employment for all (in South Africa)". Such a programme, run for perhaps 50 years, said Webster, would also divert some of the short-term focus on continuing concerns about levels of skills and enable these to grow over the time period. From: http://www.weekendpost.co.za/business/article.aspx?id=420282 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
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