Tag: job creation

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Mozambique’s known natural gas reserves spiked from nearly nothing to over 165 tcf, placing it as the continent’s third biggest reserve holder. It has been almost exactly ten years since Anadarko drilled the well that would give Mozambique its first major gas find in over sixty years of mostly disappointing oil and gas exploration.

As we approach Budget Speech Day on 26 February 2020, many people are wondering what kind of rabbit Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is going to pull out of his hat this year. Most commentators will talk about ‘bracket-creep’, sin taxes and an increase of 1% to the VAT rate. But the Minister needs to start becoming a little more creative.

During the 2020 State of the Nation Address, President Ramaphosa made special mention of the great strides being made by the Youth Employment Service (YES) in tackling South Africa’s youth employment crisis.

Public sector staff expands and retail jobs disappoint. Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reported on that South Africa’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 29.1% during the fourth quarter of 2019. With this reading, South Africa has the fourth-highest unemployment rate out of 182 countries tracked by Trading Economics, after Namibia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Angola.

Stats SA recently announced that South Africa’s unemployment rate increased by 0,1% to 29,1% of the population in the third quarter of this year. While this figure is at an all-time high since 2008, it is unrealistic to expect our government to reduce these statistics on their own.

The latest research has demonstrated what we always known: Entrepreneurship can be taught, selected for and measured. A study has identified the indicators which predict high-impact entrepreneurial activity in the start-up sector. The study was carried out with 1,200 start-up and established entrepreneurs.

Most governments in Africa share the common problem of high youth unemployment. Global economic forces and decisions of powerhouses like Britain and America are increasingly impacting growth of African economies. African countries have thus found themselves on the back foot and unable to stimulate their economies sufficiently to create jobs, especially in the formal sector.

Access to more data is vital for economic growth and education. Young people spend more and more time on mobile devices - the fewer regulations and the more competition we have in SA, the more they will be enabled to access a whole universe of educational resources. The government can either aid in empower young people by letting go of control over data, or it can inhibit a real, transformative, empowering process by bumbling from spectrum allocation ‘deadline’ to ‘deadline.’ The choice, and unlimited potential, are clear: massive pressure must be put on government to get radio spectrum allocated.

A small group of naïve billionaires in the United States are lining up begging for higher taxes on the super rich. I say naïve because they itemise a whole list of problems they imagine can be solved with this additional tax. The whole thing reminds me of the history of foreign aid in Africa.

Citing seven priorities, President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged to restore the National Development Plan to its place at the centre of our national effort, to make it alive and to make it part of the lived experience of the South African people.