President Zuma must address unemployment crisis
29 July 2014
It is high time that President Jacob Zuma address the growing unemployment crisis directly.
The STATS SA second quarter labour force survey, released today, indicates that the unemployment rate has increased to 25.5% as per the narrow definition of unemployment (see report here - PDF).
When accounting for all those that have given up on looking for work, the rate is as high as 35.6%. The total number of South Africans that cannot find work has now increased to 7 573 000 people. That is roughly the same number of people as everyone residing in North West Province and Mpumalanga combined.
There is no question about it: unemployment is a national crisis. We need urgent and clear action by our President to deal with it.