Business leaders participating in the
News24 On The Record conference are fed up. South Africa's unemployment rate has increased from under 25% a decade ago to
33.9% in the second quarter of 2022, and that's if you ignore the discouraged job seekers.
A whopping 66% of young people are not employed. Warnings about a recurrence of the July 2021 riots are growing as escalating food prices and other living expenses have pushed more households towards and below the poverty line. And South Africa seems stuck in the 1% to 1.5% growth corridor, which means there isn't much hope for the unemployed and hungry.
"We are in very big trouble. It doesn't take a professor to work that out," said the former head of the National Treasury's budget office, Professor
Michael Sachs. "I think we are drowning, and the struggle we are in right now is to reach surface water," he added.
The business sector can't see how multinational companies can choose SA over other more productive and business-friendly countries. The government has often accused the private sector of being on an investment "strike". But they say the numbers speak for themselves. SA needs to boost its economic growth and address the unemployment time bomb.
The country's GDP growth can't seem to reach 5%, something other emerging countries already have. The GDP per capita and industrial output have declined materially, but Eskom still can't generate enough electricity to keep the economy going - even with less demand.
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