President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday that his government is targeting to create two million jobs over the next decade as it seeks to close a widening unemployment crisis among the country’s youth.
Making the pledge when he delivered his State of the Nation Address in the South African parliament in Cape Town, Ramaphosa said his administration had set a strict schedule to eradicate poverty in the country, saying after a decade he did not want to see any compatriot going to bed hungry.
The president set five “ambitious” goals for his administration, which included growing the economy faster than the country’s population growth, employing two million young people, empowering schools’ curricula – where a 10-year-old pupil is able to read – as well as cutting crime by half.
“Let us make these commitments now – to ourselves and to each other – knowing that they will stretch our resources and capabilities, but understanding that if we achieve these five goals, we will have fundamentally transformed our society,” Ramaphosa said.
According to the president, “we set these ambitious goals, not despite the severe difficulties of the present, but because of them.”
“We set these goals so that the decisions we take now are bolder as we act with greater urgency,” he said.
South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 27.6% in the first quarter of this year, with young people between 15 and 34 years old being the most affected by joblessness – an issue Ramaphosa declared was a national crisis.
“In addition to creating employment and other economic opportunities, this means that we must strengthen the social wage and reduce the cost of living.
“This means we must improve the affordability, safety and integration of commuter transport for low income households,” the newly elected president, into his first year of a five-year mandate, said in parliament.
NM/jn/APA