2005-10-08,+ANC+Today+on+Employment,+October+7


 * ANC Today**

-


 * Volume 5, No. 40. 7 - 13 October 2005**

Extract

= EMPLOYMENT =


 * Creating work at the centre of government priorities**

The pressing task of economic growth and job creation lies at the heart of the programme of the ANC and its Alliance partners, guiding the work of government and providing an important rallying point for all sectors of society.

In the same week as the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) embarked on its Jobs and Poverty Campaign and the South African Communist Party (SACP) launched its Red October campaign to focus on the problem of hunger and food security, the ANC reaffirmed the centrality of these challenges to its programme and that of the ANC-led government.

Commenting on various province-based actions by Cosatu members, the ANC said in a statement that it shared workers' concerns about unemployment and job losses. It is for this reason that the ANC has placed economic development and job creation at the centre of its programme - and the programme of government - to 2014.

This programme is founded on the collective efforts of all South Africans during the first decade of democracy to build a stable and growing economy and push back the frontiers of poverty.

In 1994, when the ANC was elected into office, the country's economy had deep-seated structural deficiencies and had been in a state of severe decline. Through effective economic management, including measures to reduce public debt, the economy has been turned around. At the same time, more resources have been made available for real increases in spending on health, education, housing, social grants and other services.

The economic recovery of the first decade of democracy, amid significant changes to the structure of South African society and shifts in global employment trends, resulted in the creation of two million net new jobs. However, at the same time, the pool of people seeking working in the economy increased even more, with the result that the number of new jobs created could not keep pace with the number of people entering the job market. Addressing this problem is therefore one of the key challenges facing the country in the second decade of democracy.

Since it was elected in April 2004 with a clear and overwhelming mandate to build a people's contract to create work and fight poverty, the ANC-led government has focused its efforts on accelerating the pace of economic development and intervening decisively to improve the job creation capacity of the economy.

At the same time, the ANC-led government has focused on improving measures to alleviate the impact of poverty on the country's poor and most vulnerable.

Building on the achievement of economic stability in the first decade of democracy and an uninterrupted period of sustained economic growth, and in line with the commitments made in the 2004 election manifesto, the ANC is working to tackle unemployment and poverty by:


 * substantially increasing investment - by both the public and private sectors -in economic infrastructure and capacity;


 * reducing the costs of doing business in critical areas like transport, energy and telecommunications;
 * encouraging, through incentives and other measures, the development of strategic economic sectors with high potential for growth and labour absorption;


 * improving finance, support and the regulatory environment to encourage the growth of small and medium business;


 * improving the impact of the human resource development strategy, by, among other things, improving the functioning and reach of the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs);


 * implementing the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), providing training and work experience to a million South Africans within five years.

Rates of economic growth continue to improve, improving the capacity of the economy to meet the needs of our people and to draw greater numbers of people into formal employment. These achievements need to be consolidated, and complemented by measures to encourage an even higher trajectory of growth.

Progress in the economic sphere is taking place alongside the ongoing work of government to push back the frontiers of poverty. Among other things, this includes the provision of social grants to all those who qualify, accelerating the provision of quality housing to the poor, extending basic services like water, sanitation and electricity to those who have not received them, and speeding up the pace of land and agrarian reform.

The ANC remains committed to working with its Alliance partners to ensure the implementation of the programme of action adopted at the Alliance Summit in April 2003. Among other things, the summit declaration said: "As an Alliance, we acknowledge our collective responsibility for addressing the unemployment and job-loss crisis. It is our Alliance that must provide the decisive strategic leadership to our country on these challenges."

The ANC is committed to work with its Alliance partners and other sectors of society to put South Africa onto a sustainable growth and development path that creates and protects jobs and that ensures decent work and livelihoods for all.

The Alliance continues to work also on immediate measures to address job losses in specific sectors, such as the development of a plan to respond to the crisis facing the clothing, textile and footwear industry.

The challenge of creating work and fighting poverty requires the coordinated actions of all sectors of society, working together to progressively realise the goal of a better life for all.

The ANC therefore reiterates its call to all South Africans to join the effort to build a people's contract to mobilise the collective resources and energies of the nation to achieve the goal of halving unemployment and poverty by 2014.