A leading member of parliament has today (Friday) urged the youth to prioritise education and acquisition of skills as part of reducing the massive unemployment facing the country.
Mathole Motshekga, Chief Whip of the National Assembly, was addressing stakeholders from business, labour, government, civil society groups as well as the youth at the job summit organised by Department of Labour’s Public Employment Services (PES) at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.
PES aims to match available skills with vacancies on the employer’s database.
“Failure to prioritise education could lead to young people being tempted to become tenderpreneurs whose job is to front for others and engage in corrupt business activities that lead to conflict with the law,” Motshekga said.
He said “it was good that the job fair has been brought to Gauteng because here everybody thinks that a white collar job and employment means working for others, especially the white minority. Previous administrations of this province made the mistake of looking at the province as an exclusively urban area. This made all of us dependant on mines, industries, government administration and the private sector for jobs.
“As a result, we even take prime agricultural land and use it for housing development without asking ourselves where these residents are going to work”, the Chief Whip said.
The deputy minister of Mineral Resources Godfrey Oliphant who spoke for on behalf of Minister Mildred Oliphant said even though much needed to be done, the Government was committed to create a climate for job creation.
“This initiative is just one of the basket of interventions whereby we want to see those who are unemployed being placed in available job opportunities. We have invested through the Unemployment Insurance over R4-billion rand and today over 36 000 jobs have been saved or created,” he said.
Kenny Fick, Head of Department in Gauteng, said: “This event shows our commitment that going forward unemployment in South Africa will come down. We are grateful that employers have descended on this place in their numbers to inform and educate the youth about opportunities that exist in their operations.”
The audience included notable parliamentarians amongst them, Alleck Nchabeleng the chairperson of portfolio committee on labour, Godfrey Oliphant, the Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources, Nkosinathi Nhleko, Director General for the Department as well as Les Kettledas, Deputy Director General for Labour Market Policy.
Enquiries:
Musa Zondi
Cell: 082 901 8081
Education and skills are the future for job creation - Job Summit told
