Youth unemployment, looming retrenchments to take spotlight at #JobsSummit
The National Economic Development and Labour Council's (Nedlac) much anticipated job summit kicks off on Thursday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa will lead a government delegation to the two-day summit.
The talks aim at tackling the surging levels of unemployment with specific objectives to curb youth joblessness and looming retrenchments in the public and private sector.
Statistics South Africa announced in July that the quarterly labour survey figures show that 6 million South Africans are unemployed.
The rate is at a staggering 27.2% with businesses also feeling the pinch after the economy slipped into a technical recession.
"The current jobs that are there, we need to have strategies to ensure that they do not go away. We can't be creating jobs at the same time have this surge of retrenchments and downsizing of companies," says executive director of Nedlac, Madoda Vilakazi.
According to Vilakazi, the powerful figures from business and government will also look at strategies to ensure the market is conducive to job creation and investments.
He vowed that the summit will lead to results, following criticism that it would be just another conference of consultations.
"I hope we will agree on mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of job summit agreements. What is critical is not just agreeing and signing an agreement on Thursday and Friday - but what is critical is the implementation of those agreements."
Ramaphosa and Minister in the Presidency Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are expected to address the delegates at the conference at Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand on Thursday.