Minister Mdladlana said the figures released by Statistics South Africa today showed that there had been a marginal increase in the number of people employed.
The official unemployment rate, which excluded people who were not actively looking for jobs, showed that the number of people with work, increased slightly to 11.6-million.
"In an international environment where jobs are being shed and economic growth is limited, this stabilisation represents a very real achievement for government," said Mr Mdladlana.
The Stats SA figures showed that 57 000 jobs were created between March and September 2003, which included at least a one percent increase in the number of people employed in the non-agricultural formal sector.
Mr Mdladlana said government had a number of programmes in place that would result in more jobs being created, amongst them was the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS).
He said the NSDS was successfully providing millions of South Africans with the skills needed to grow the economy.
"In line with the commitments made at the Growth and Development Summit, the take-on of learnerships is being accelerated and we fully expect to meet our 72 000 target by end of May of this year," he said.
Minister Mdladlana added that his department would be taking 645 learners as from the beginning of May.
He said within the next month his department would also launch the Lead Employer Pilot Project, a precursor to the Employment Skills Development Agencies, which will take the administrative burden of employing learners away from small and medium enterprises.
"This government is on track to meeting its stated goal of halving unemployment by 2014," said Mr Mdladlana. - BuaNews
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE SAVE THIS ARTICLE FEEDBACK
To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here
