Tag: poverty

The Job Seekers Exemption Certificate (JSEC) idea has been around for a long time. It was first presented to President Thabo Mbeki, who passed it on to the Department of Labour. But nothing was done with it. It seems that it is only when you are unemployed that you can understand that it will be like holding a piece of gold in your hand.

It is no secret that entrepreneurship and business creation is the lifeblood of economic growth and innovation. Research out of the United States by the Kauffman Foundation, for example, underscored that entrepreneurship is integral to job creation and economic progress.

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.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reported on October 29 that South Africa’s unemployment rate increased from 29.0% in 2019 Q2 to 29.1% in the third quarter. This was the highest jobless reading since 2003, and South Africa now has the joint fourth-highest unemployment rate out of 182 countries tracked by Trading Economics.

Tafadzwa Zimunhu Taruvinga, a young Zimbabwean, enrolls to study economics at Rhodes University in South Africa. As a foreign student, the fees are exorbitant, exacerbated by the fact that currency has become increasingly problematic in the ailing economy back home.

We are an investment manager investing in South Africa. Our capital comes exclusively from American investors. Being based in New York and Johannesburg gives us a useful perspective on how SA is perceived by the international investment community.

Why is it that some people work hard, yet remain poor? How is it that others seem to rise out of poverty and become affluent in a short span of time? If you want to know how to become rich relatively quickly and avoid spending years working back-breakingly hard without ever breaking even, then read on.

In their 2014 Harvard Business Review article titled 'What VUCA Really Means for you', Nathan Bennett and James Lemoine warned us not to use the VUCA acronym as a crutch. Sadly, looking at the South African context today, this has indeed become a reality. It is important to understand that just because we can’t prepare for a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world, does not mean we cannot lead our businesses through it.

The author tackles the millennia-old money curse and focuses her attention on this issue in her book because it manifested in her family. Her father grew up with wealth, yet by the time he passed he was financially dependent on his children.

The unfettered liberty for individuals to pursue their socioeconomic aspirations so long as there is no force or fraud entailed in their endeavours should be the cornerstone and point of departure for all government policies. This principle should also be the litmus test in reviewing existing policies in order to expunge bad ones from the statute books.