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President Cyril Ramaphosa presented his economic recovery and reconstruction plan for South Africa to parliament on Thursday (October 15), laying out the government’s plan to help restore South Africa’s economy after the coronavirus pandemic.
In a series of documents published alongside Ramaphosa’s submission, the government outlined some steps for the recovery plan, as well as long time frames for changes.
One of the key interventions is the creation and support of 875,000 jobs in the 2020/21 financial year, increasing further in 2021/22 and 2022/23.
Below are some of the areas the government said it will focus and contract on to meet this goal.
- 50,000 new opportunities in environmental programs and 14,000 new opportunities in community forestry;
- 25,000 new opportunities in the maintenance of labor-intensive municipal infrastructure;
- 1,560 new opportunities in facility maintenance, water and energy efficiency, and construction of rural bridges;
- 37,097 new opportunities in rural road maintenance;
- 5,531 new opportunities in community health work;
- 32,663 new public employment opportunities in cities;
- 300,000 opportunities for teachers and school assistants and the protection of 44,933 vulnerable teaching positions;
- Expansion of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) incentive to create 8,000 jobs in global business services.
Ramaphosa has also pledged to support various sectors that were greatly affected by the coronavirus lockdown. These sectors include:
- Secondary 74,626 small farmers to expand production and access markets;
- Support for 34,070 Livelihoods in the creative, cultural and sports sector (including grant funding and protection of vulnerable positions in cultural institutions);
- Support to 5,000 young entrepreneurs and micro-businesses;
- Support for 111,142 livelihoods in early childhood development.
Large-scale labor interventions driven by the state and social partners have proven effective in many countries that have faced the devastation of wars and other crises, Ramaphosa said in his presentation Thursday.
“We have committed R100 billion over the next three years to create jobs through public and social employment as the labor market recovers.
“This starts now, with more than 800,000 job opportunities created in the coming months. The stimulus to employment focuses on those interventions that can be implemented more quickly and have the greatest impact on the economic recovery, ”he said.
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