The latest unemployment figures released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) illustrate that the African National Congress's (ANC's) labour policy is misguided, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday.

Some 267 000 South Africans lost their jobs between the first and second quarter of 2009, according to Stats SA's Quarterly Labour Force survey released on Tuesday.

This was a clear signal that the ANC's stance on labour policy was misguided and ultimately destructive to employment creation, DA spokesperson Andrew Louw said in a statement.

"Far from creating the 500 000 new jobs that President [Jacob] Zuma promised, the ANC's misguided labour policy is actively fuelling job losses, thus compounding the effects of the global recession in South Africa."

Including discouraged job seekers, the unemployment rate in South Africa stood at 29,7%.

In other words, three in ten potential workers were unemployed.
The effects of this were clear.

Families were facing the very real problem of not being able to buy food, homeowners were no longer able to service their mortgages, and school leavers had little prospect of finding a job to support themselves and contribute to society.

"The ANC now needs to accept that political rhetoric cannot solve the real issues facing the labour market in South Africa.

Rather than focusing their attention on scrapping labour brokers, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana needed to recognise that:

- the demand for labour brokers was a response in part to rigid
labour regulation;
- the shortage of skills was a major cause of unemployment that needed urgent attention; and
- the labour department was not capable of enforcing its own laws that were supposed to protect both permanent and temporary workers.

Louw said South Africa would only be able to create employment opportunities after these issues had been dealt with.

"Going out of one's way to accommodate the wishes of trade unions is not prudent labour policy, and commitments towards employment creation need to be backed by a capable administration.

"Workers cannot better their income because they cannot access training programmes, and the unemployed struggle to find jobs in a heavily regulated market.

"It is crucial that the law makes it easier for workers to find employment," he said.