How very fitting that President Zuma’s state of the nation address coincided with the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison on 11 Feb 1990. Over the past two decades South Africa has come a long way in terms of the democratization of the economy and society in general. Yet, the country continues to face many challenges and perhaps the second biggest challenge behind what I regard as SA’s biggest challenge, education, is the high unemployment rate. According to Stats SA, 89,000 jobs were created during the fourth quarter of 2009, however for the full 2009 calendar year the economy shed just under 900,000 jobs.
A labour-intensive economy
South Africa is a developing economy with very low levels of secondary let alone tertiary education among those entering the job market. Furthermore the high unemployment rate means there is an abundance of labour waiting for the next job opportunity. As such, what is really needed are jobs which are labour intensive requiring little skill, to allow this abundant labour force the opportunity to find employment. The idea of creating a labour-intensive jobs market in a society that has an abundance of labour is not new, however I raise it because I think now more than ever South Africa needs to make such jobs a reality. The continuing high unemployment rate and the prevailing recession, together make this approach to labour a necessity. It was encouraging therefore to hear President Zuma, in his state of the nation address, confirming that the creation of labour intensive jobs will receive attention from his government.
The Cape Town example
Recently I was in the beautiful city of Cape Town and one of the things which struck me was the employment and use of people-operated parking meters in the streets. These people carry electronic gadgets into which they punch the car registration and the time the vehicle arrived to be parked. They then collect a fee from the drive in advance from the drive. Should the drive park their vehicle for a period longer than what they paid initially, they then have to pay the difference before driving off. The people-operated car parking meters in Cape Town epitomize this labour-intensive job creation approach. I do appreciate that recently, there have been reports of the Cape Town car park operators pocketing the money they collect from car owners for their own pockets, resulting in huge revenue loses for the city. In my view improved management is all that is required to ensure that more of the money collected by the people meters goes to the city coffers.
To be sure, there are some services offered by government which are too critical to ever be left to an unskilled labour force to carry out, but where the services are not critical government ought to seriously consider the use of labour instead of high-tech machinery. Some argue that a labour intensive economy, left unchecked, could become inefficient and this government must guard against at all cost. The 16th US President, Abraham Lincoln once said, “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Indeed the context within which this was said must be taken into account but, somehow I think the idea applies perfectly well to the South Africa of today.
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