Tag: Eustace Davie

According to Statistics South Africa, the SA unemployment rate in the third Quarter (Q3) of 2023 was 41.2% (7.8 million people). In addition, youth unemployment (ages 15 to 34 years) in Q3 was 4.6 million, out of a total of 12.4 million unemployed people in the country. The total population is 61.02 million.

Eustace Davie | Director | Free Market Foundation | mail me | It is not simply what education teaches us directly, but how well it...

Removing the causes of mass youth unemployment in South Africa would have multiple positive consequences for job seekers. If small businesses and households, “the natural employers of young and untrained workers in an open labour market”, were free of the burden of the minimum wage and other unnecessary regulatory burdens that have been imposed on them, they could make an unprecedent contribution to the economy.

The fact that a South African individual is unemployed, is not well-educated, and has had difficulty in finding employment, does not mean that government officials are entitled to treat them with disrespect. All citizens who obey the laws, and treat their fellow citizens with respect, are not only entitled to be treated with equal respect but also to have their rights, as described in the South African Constitution, fully respected.

Read our exclusive cover story titled Let me work! - official violation of the rights of the unemployed must end by Eustace Davie, Director, Free Market Foundation, plus a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the June/July 2023 edition.

If jobseekers in South Africa currently had the right to freely enter voluntary contracts with employers at wages and on conditions acceptable to both parties, the country would not have mass unemployment. Figures recently released by Statistics SA confirm the statement by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that at 29.8 percent South Africa had the highest unemployment rate in the world. At 4.9 percent the USA had the lowest rate.

Eskom, as a state-owned monopoly, with centrally controlled oversight and direction, is not the best structure for the supply of electricity in South Africa, a critical energy source without which no nation can grow and prosper. Better structures are those that have evolved under competitive circumstances in the European Union, United States, and small, forward-looking countries such as New Zealand.

South Africa ranks 99th out of 165 countries and territories included in the Economic Freedom of the World - 2022 Annual Report, we have released in conjunction with Canada’s Fraser Institute. It can be noted that in 2000, South Africa ranked 47th on the list of countries analysed.

Michael O’Dowd wrote in his book, The Industrial Revolution Myth and Reality, about the widely held myth that the industrial revolution in eighteenth century England was evil, which he contended was a persistent but mistaken myth.

Economist Thomas Sowell said: “It is not what education teaches us directly, but how well it prepares us to learn ourselves that is the ultimate measure of its value.”