I find these statistics rather humorous and depressing at the same time as the figures in SA are actually far worse than these figures suggest and they are kidding themselves.
Over 30% of any population being unemployed is a sad figure and one to never be proud of. This is like a perfect storm with the chickens coming home to roost as this cannot be fixed overnight. South Africa at least got top spot for something even though it is not something you should be proud of.
One of the biggest problems in the country is you can't fire and hire without having some Government department breathing down your neck. This is one reason why I work by myself as it is far easier to avoid the red tape. I know of companies using their much valued resources trying to get rid of useless employees and are literally stuck with them. 3 offences of the same thing is the only way you can fire someone in a period of 6 months and then they can just repeat what they were doing again.
The government had huge corruption issues with the ex president Zuma and now Ramaphosa has to wittle them all out one by one from his Government. The Government is basically bankrupt as the coffers were emptied and now are back in the rebuilding phase hoping no one else has sticky fingers.
Throw in Covid lockdowns and the country has no chance as the hole just gets deeper and deeper. I was warned today by a physio who is part of the Government Covid team for another lockdown come October. They are expecting the next wave to hit then and she has been right every time so far.
I think what is the scariest part of this whole thing is how much people are earning as what they receive in handouts from the Government is way below the bread line. I make more on Hive within 1 day than they receive in an entire month and I am not a big earner here. Definitely a case of the poor getting poorer with no job prospects in sight for this year at least.
Governments are supposed to plough the tax money back into the economy which then creates more work. What has been noticeable over the past 5 years is that there seems to be a shortage of spending power amongst the middle class. The corruption is that bad that it is noticeable how it has affected the flow of money from years gone by till now. A season such as Christmas has seen shoppers holding back and the sales over the last few years has been dismal decreasing every year. The holding back is they just don't have the funds that they used to have and that is down to the tax money not being circulated back into the economy.
Jobs need to be created and if the Government cannot do that by maintaining infrastructure then they are solely relying on the private sector which cannot happen. The burden of relying on businesses that are taxed heavily already is not helping and something has to give somewhere. The private sector should be given special tax credits for creating jobs as they are the only ones capable of doing this now. The 34 % I said is misleading as it is more like 50% and we still are seeing businesses closing down. South Africa has had an open border policy with it's neighboring countries for decades and to be honest they have no clue how many people are in the country today.