South Africa election 2024: Long job queue overshadowing the vote

Like the one in Durban, the government has been running jobs fairs across the country for four years now.

“We train them then pass them to the private sector to absorb them,” Minister Nxesi says.

But asked if the private sector had the capacity to absorb the kind of numbers of unemployed people South Africa has, he conceded that “to increase employment you need economic growth, and to have economic growth, you need investment”.

This is really the crux of the matter.

Prof Saville argues that the absence of investment to drive economic growth is the biggest structural gap. The economic growth that has happened, he says, has come from government and consumer spending, “which are not productive sectors and do not create jobs”.

Persistent power problems have also seriously disrupted economic activity and increased operating costs for businesses.

And the Covid-19 pandemic only exacerbated the situation.

South Africa was one of the hardest-hit on the continent. Extended periods of total lockdown drove the economy to the doldrums. “We lost two million jobs,” says the employment minister.

The ANC’s main political rival, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has described recent unemployment figures as a “jobs bloodbath.” The party promises to “transform South Africa into an enterprise economy”. It calls the DA-led Western Cape, the province with the lowest unemployment rate in the country, “South Africa’s job engine” and says it is an example how the party could transform the country.

In contrast, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led by firebrand Julius Malema, touts nationalisation as the answer to unemployment. The EFF also promises to give a monthly stipend to unemployed graduates.

There is a clear understanding and acknowledgement of the magnitude of the challenge of unemployment across the political divide.

The ANC has evidently scored poorly on jobs, but the alternatives remain untested and their ideas, varied as they may be, remain a hard sell.

At the job fair in Durban there are some who will stick with the ANC as they have not seen any better options, but the sense of disappointment among many is palpable.

One woman, who did not want to be identified, says the “government has failed us. It’s very painful”.