Webinar invitation: How the GNU can help boost jobs and skills – IRR

High hopes that South Africa’s Government of National Unity (GNU) would help reduce unemployment are petering out. In the second quarter of 2025, the unemployment rate rose by 0.3% to 33.2%. In 1994, by contrast, it stood at 20%.

To bring the unemployment rate down to less than 10% within ten years, South Africa needs to generate roughly 900,000 net new jobs a year. For the past 20 years, however, only about 240,000 net new jobs a year have been created.

These are some of the key points in a new report from the Institute of Race Relations (IRR). Entitled Generating Jobs and Skills for Growth and Prosperity, the report is latest in the IRR’s Blueprint for Growth series.

To help increase the generation of new jobs, says Dr Anthea Jeffery, IRR Head of Policy Research and author of the report, “the GNU must pinpoint the main barriers to job creation and set about removing them with singular determination”.

One key barrier is a national minimum wage law that prices new entrants out of the labour market. Another is a pervasive skills deficit that discourages investment, diminishes productivity and leaves millions without the competencies in demand in the workplace.

Technical skills of various kinds are particularly needed. Most industrial societies have over 6% of their youth in vocational education. South Africa has just 2%. Moreover, most of these students are poorly served by poorly performing Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges. This needs urgently to change.

Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) have failed dismally over decades to help build up skills. They serve little purpose and should simply be scrapped.

Too much emphasis is being put on “massification” at universities, which battle with badly prepared students and high drop-out rates. “Free” tertiary education is proving both costly and wasteful.

Relatively minor amendments to labour laws could make it easier for millions to find work, as the report explains. Improving TVETs and universities is more complex. It needs thinking “outside the box” on how best to boost value through competition and innovation.

Join us on 26^th August for the online launch of the IRR’s new paper. Here, Dr Jeffery and Hermann Pretorius, IRR head of strategic communication, will discuss the reforms required for jobs, skills, growth – and much increased prosperity.

Event details

Date: Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Time: 10:00 - 11:00

Speakers:

Anthea Jeffery, IRR Head of Policy Research

Hermann Pretorius, IRR Head of Strategic Communications

Register for the webinar here.

Media contact: Anthea Jeffery, IRR Head of Policy Research Tel: +27 11 482 7221 ; Email: ajj@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris, Head of Media Tel: +2766 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za