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The Adcorp Employment Index released today indicates that employment declined by 2.1% during August. At a time when we should be turning the jobs crisis around, we are sliding further backwards.

In February, President Zuma declared 2011 “the year of the job”. It has turned out to be the opposite. What will it take for government to realise that actions speak louder than words when it comes to job creation?

The government needs to act now if it is to prevent further job losses. This much is clear from the Adcorp Index, which also shows that many employed South Africans are not being fully utilised in their jobs. This raises the spectre of further job-shedding as companies try to improve cost-efficiency in this difficult economic climate.

There is so much the government could do to improve the prospects of unemployed people in South Africa. A DA-run government would implement a youth wage subsidy, would reform labour laws to be more employment friendly, would boost small business development by giving a tax holiday to newly established small businesses, would increase investment in infrastructure maintenance and development, would provide opportunity vouchers for young people and would give tax rebates for skills development programmes.

When the President said that 2011 would be “the year of the job”, he raised the expectations of millions of unemployed South Africans. Since then, he has dashed their hopes by failing to make the tough choices that would grow our economy and create millions of jobs. What will he say to the jobless when he stands before Parliament in February next year?