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South Africa’s unemployment crisis has become a pandemic within a pandemic with yet another record number of people unemployed during the fourth quarter of last year.

Is this the real cost of the Covid-19 pandemic – an unemployment rate of 32.5%, as announced by Stats SA yesterday?

UASA has repeatedly called on government to act on the unemployment crisis since before the world was forced into lockdown by Covid-19. Still, we have seen very little to no returns from the various job summits and investment drives that took place.

The country desperately needs reforms to rectify. We cannot push forward as a nation with one third of the population without a job and income.

This afternoon, when Finance Minister Tito Mboweni tables the 2021 National Budget, we expect an announcement of strong and real measures to save the economy.

UASA encourages South Africans to continue to buy and use locally-made products and services to help our economy towards recovery and stabilise job losses.

Issued by UASA