Ramaphosa: Presidential Employment Stimulus to ‘protect jobs’

President Cyril Ramaphosa has assured South Africans that his R100 billion stimulus package, aimed at tackling the country’s unemployment crisis, will lead to an avenue of possibilities and essentially prove to have been economically and socially fruitful.

In his weekly newsletter published on Monday, 19 October 2020, Ramaphosa said through the package, government would protect and create directly-funded jobs and livelihood support interventions while the labour market recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.

He announced his economic reconstruction and recovery plan for South Africa to parliament on Thursday, 15 October 2020, where he revealed at least 800 000 job opportunities would be created in the medium term.

‘Social Employment’

The president said while some of the so-called interventions would build on the strengths of existing programmes, the stimulus also includes new and innovative approaches. The latter would partly refer to ‘Social Employment’.

“The aim is to support the considerable creativity, initiative and institutional capabilities that exist in the wider society to engage people in work that serves the common good,”

“This work cuts across a range of themes, including food security, ending gender-based violence, informal settlement upgrading and much more”

President Cyril Ramaphosa

Public Employment – ‘not just for unskilled work’

He said the stimulus would also include a new programme which is aimed at employing teaching and school assistants in school, adding that leaning institutions had already gotten the ball rolling on appointments.

With the state of the public sector currently under the microscope, Ramaphosa said employment in the area was not just for unskilled work as there was a cross-cutting focus on graduates, with opportunities for nurses, science graduates, artisans and others.

“The stimulus will also protect jobs in vulnerable sectors that have been hit hard by the pandemic. Support will be provided to Early Childhood Development practitioners, mainly self-employed women. Over 74,000 small farmers will also receive production input grants,” he added.

Ramaphosa further lauded public employment as an instrument that can create jobs at scale in the short term while markets recover, and creating social value in the process.

“Direct public investment to support employment and create economic opportunities that generate social value does more than just tackle the unemployment crisis,” he said.

“It is responsive, because it uses the state’s resources to respond to local community needs, be it for greener spaces, food security, more early childhood development centres, or for better and more accessible roads”

The president said public investment is progressive because it offers social protection and income security to those who face destitution because they are unable to find work.