ANC Today
*Towards the Second Jobs for Youth Summit* *Buti Manamela, ANC Today, Johannesburg, 21 October 2011*We almost sound like a broken record when we say that the rate of youth unemployment is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in the face of the ruling and capitalist elite, but this is a fact. The President declared this year the year of jobs. There were various commitments and targets announced at the State of the Nation Address.
As part of the mid-term reports of government, we need to be getting tangible progress reports on what has been done to ensure that we meet the target of 5 million jobs by 2030. However, what has been reported through the recent Labour Force Survey causes more displeasure and gloom on this target. We have to change the tide of unemployment, especially amongst young people, and meet the targets set.
A shocking 8 million people are unemployed and between 50 and 70 percent of these are young people of working age. What is not being told also is that more than 13 million of our population depends on government social grants, and that the figure will increase in the coming years. Some of the beneficiaries of these grants are young people who are able bodied and who are ready and willing to enter the labour market.
The desperation of these youth can be turned into a political crisis as seen in countries such as Portugal, Greece, Italy and Spain where young people are today trashing the streets opposing new austerity measures imposed by the European Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which will condemn them to a permanent cycle of poverty.
In our case, we are beginning to feel the impact of a double-deep recession with close to 500 000 jobs lost last year alone and more to be lost in the coming years if something is not done. The jobs recession is also as a result of the macro-economic policies (GEAR) adopted in 1996 that made us vulnerable and dependent of the export markets of the EU and the US whose volatility we are feeling currently.
It was clear then that dependence on the Eurozone and the US was unsustainable. There is a huge deficit we have to cover in terms of investment in education, health and the general livelihood of our people as a result of huge cuts in social spending in the ten years post-Gear.
A plethora of proposals have been made to turn the situation around, but some of them consist of the same bitter medicine we were told to swallow in 1996, whilst others are progressive and needs to be supported. But what is clear is that something different has to be done by our government in order to ensure that we have positive results and give hope to the 8 million unemployed people.
Some of these proposals include the introduction of a flexible labour market system and the procrastination by the private sector to bring to an end labor broking. We remain opposed to this as new forms of super-exploitation and intended to sponsor capital rather than take our people out of the poverty line.
There are also progressive proposals such as the enforcement of labour laws relating to equity and transformation, and the change in the racial divisions within the labour market. Some of the proposals contained in the Youth Wage Subsidy discussion document, for instance, are taking us miles backwards and will only result in the deepening of super-exploitation of young people as opposed to improving their livelihood.
The challenge of unemployment, deepening poverty and widening inequalities are real and it is only young people who can change the nature of the current discourse on the issues.
The YCL's JOBS FOR YOUTH SUMMIT to be convened later this month is part of those unconventional discussions that brings together young people from different socio-political formations to engage and emerge with one voice on what remedies are needed to resolve youth unemployment.
The Summit, convening for the second time with the support and participation of more than 90 youth formations, will engage into practical discussions about the challenges faced by young people and demand answers from both government and the private sector. Beyond that, the Summit will also engage on the issue of youth unemployment from the perspective of young people, as opposed to the perspective of those who lock themselves in boardrooms or in the floor of the Stock Exchange to speculate about our future.
At the top of the agenda of this year's Summit is the question of skills development and education. We will question the propotion of young people of university going age versus the number of higher education institution in our country. Even with the progress made towards the construction of two more universities in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape, we will still need more than 30 universities or FET Colleges in order to ensure that no learner is turned back because there is no space.
The YCL has always been of the view that we should reopen teacher, nursing and agricultural colleges in order to absorb more young people in these fields. It makes no sense that we have closed these institutions down but have opened more police academies and strengthened our prison system. There are more liquor outlets in our country than there are education or skills institutions, whether public or private.
Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETA's) have a critical role to play in ensuring that we produce more technicians in the fields of welding, construction, plumbing, electrical, electronics and bricklaying. These are necessary skills which will result in millions of young people being absorbed through the infrastructure spend of R900bn earmarked by government. It is scandalous that Eskom had to procure welders from South Korea for their Medupi projects, and that more power stations are in the pipeline without these being linked to the National Skills Development Strategy.
The Summit will also look into the role of tenders in our economy and their impact on job creation. Government must make an audit as to how much it has spent through procurement of services and whether all of these have created quality jobs. It is a fact that in many instances there is a relationship between the system of capitalism, corruption and government procurement processes. We also have to ask the question whether it is sustainable that each and every cent that government spends should go into tender as compared to the creation of sustainable and permanent jobs especially in the local state.
The discussions on the government's diagnostic report and the role of the National Planning Commission will feature prominently in our discussions. There are lessons to learn from countries such as China in terms of their long-term planning and how this is connected to the economic prosperity in that country. We cannot afford to have planning in government based on the political term of Ministers, but that such plans should outlive the politicians and be fool-proof from being tempered by new incumbents.
The Summit will also have to look into the current review of State-Owned Companies and how this will lead to them playing a central role in building capacity to skill and absorb new job entrants. SOE's will take the bigger slice of government infrastructure spending.
One of the critical features and systematic problems in our economy remains not the mobilization of resources into the national fiscus, but the faulty patterns in the redistribution of these resources. All governments, and ours is no exception, have a critical role in ensuring that the distribution of resources into the economy leads to sustainability, job creation and broaden economic participation by all.
Our redistribution strategy have mainly concentrated on the urban population and thus triggering migration to the big cities, and therefore creating a backlog in terms of social infrastructure in these areas and lack of access in the countryside. Inevitably, the racial and class question should remain critical features in the redistribution strategy if we are to reverse the legacy of apartheid.
Finally, and more importantly, the Summit will look into the transformation of our economy in terms of ownership and control. The main features of our economy are minerals and finance. The ownership in these sectors, looking into the Top 100 companies in the Stock Exchange, is deplorable to say the least. It is predominantly white and male and is the remaining bastion of our apartheid past. We must however emphasise that changing ownership may not necessarily lead to massive jobs creation and willingness to redistribute wealth, but the ownership of the economy should reflect the demographics of our country. The question of the ownership and control of minerals and finance are therefore critical to the completion of the defeat of the apartheid system.
All of these problems may not be resolved by declaration of the Summit. They will require political pressure from young people in order to instill a sense of political will and commitment by the elected representatives of our people.
They will also not be resolved through hurling of insults and shouting of enticing slogans in order to create a senseless and directionless revolution now. Simple solutions by imperialist propagandists are what brought us to the here and now through straightjacket prescriptions from the IMF and the World Bank. We do not need the same from within the ranks of those who claim to be progressives. We will have to think long and hard collectively as young people, regardless of where we come from and where we want to go, if we are to collectively defend our future.
They will also require that we all change our ways if we are to transform our society and country from misery and crises we face. If we are to guarantee a future where every young person works and earns a living wage, have decent education, have access to health care and can afford a decent meal and shelter; then we would have reversed the legacy of apartheid and neo-colonialism and entered the age were we are confident about this democracy.
* /Buti Manamela is an ANC Member of Parliament and National Secretary of the Young Communist League of South Africa/ *From: http://www.anc.org.za/docs/anctoday/2011/at40.htm#art3* ** ** ** -- 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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