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The Congress of South African Trade Unions has noted with distress and terror the continuing job losses as revealed by  Statistic South Africa’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey released yesterday. The latest figures show that  our economy has shed  over 129 000, in the second quarter

These depressing figures mean that the country has shed over 500 000 jobs during the first half of this year. It is deeply troubling to see that the services industry, including public administration, health and social work, as well as recreational, cultural and sporting activities, are amongst the sectors that have shed the most jobs. These are the sectors that have been resilient for some time. What is clear now is that we are facing a national crisis of job loss and rising unemployment ,which is deepening poverty and inequality, and threatening the gains of our new democracy and the social stability of our country.

The cavalier attitude of the country’s policy mandarins, the investment strike by big business and the inappropriate macro-economic policies have all colluded to not just stifle the economy, but are responsible for the ongoing job losses. The situation is not being helped by the fact that whenever the economy takes a down-turn ,our government goes back to the old logic of neoliberal economic responses. Their reaction to the economic stagnation, caused by failed neoliberal policies is to introduce more extreme neoliberal policies. This unfortunately has proved time and again that it is it not the solution to our economic challenges and that we need new urgent measures to address this growing crisis.

While it’s undeniable that we inherited high unemployment levels from the apartheid era, the flawed policies have exacerbated an already bad situation. We cannot forget that the new government in 1994 inherited a mismanaged and stagnant economy that had been destroying jobs for 25 years. We need to urgently convene a Jobs Summit, not later than the end of the year, prioritising those sectors experiencing job losses, to negotiate sector plans to stop job losses, and also create new employment. We demand a moratorium on retrenchments in the run-up to this summit.

The national agreements that will be negotiated at the summit will need to be given legal force for them to be effective. We should remember that behind the job losses statistics are families and communities whose lives are being ravaged by these massive retrenchments. Every worker supports a number of dependants and retrenched workers are often from the poorest communities and regions in the country, including rural areas. We are also calling on our national parliament to urgently convene public hearings on the jobs crisis.

Issued by COSATU