The latest numbers on Ramaphosa’s promise to support 800,000 jobs in South Africa
The Presidency has released a new report on the implementation of the ‘presidential employment stimulus’, which aimed to create or support 800,000 jobs in South Africa within the current financial year.
Announced as part of the country’s coronavirus economic recovery plan in October, president Cyril Ramaphosa said that the stimulus is designed to respond to the rise in unemployment caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“The Presidential Employment Stimulus supports a range of opportunities through the expansion of public employment as well as job retention in vulnerable sectors. In addition to employment opportunities, the stimulus provides crucial support for livelihoods in the creative sector, the agricultural sector and the early childhood development sector,” the presidency said.
“Eleven national departments and all nine provinces are responsible for the implementation of programmes supported through the employment stimulus.”
The latest report shows that more than 600,000 ‘opportunities’ have been supported to date or are currently open for recruitment/applications.
The progress and job opportunities are outlined in more detail below.
| Department | Programme | Opportunities | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Education | Education assistants and protection of vulnerable teaching posts | 344 933 | Appointments have been finalised in most of the provinces and 94% of the assistants have been placed. The national department conducted monitoring visits in over 400 schools across the country and has recently administered a survey of assistants to verify information received from provinces |
| Social Development | Income support and registration support for the early childhood development sector, and retention and recruitment of social workers | 111 142 | All appointed social workers have commenced work. The Department of Social Development is working closely with its partners in the ECD sector to distribute income support for 108,833 workers in registered and unregistered ECD programmes. |
| Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development | Subsistence Producer Relief Fund, providing input vouchers to vulnerable small-scale farmers | 74 626 | Over 178,000 applications were received through the USSD platform established by the department, and the process of issuing vouchers to eligible applicants has begun. |
| Environment, Forestry and Fisheries | Investing in the environment and natural resource management through public employment | 50 311 | Existing public employment programmes in Natural Resource Management have been expanded, while new programmes have been initiated in the Environmental Protection and Infrastructure Programme (EPIP). |
| Transport | Provincial roads maintenance | 37 079 | Recruitment commenced through provinces in January 2021 and is ongoing. |
| Sports, Arts and Culture | Support for the creative, cultural and sport sectors | 34 070 | An open call for funding proposals released by the National Arts Council and the National Film and Video Foundation was oversubscribed. Awards will be issued to successful applicants in February 2021. Support to job retention schemes in the sports sector were also oversubscribed. |
| Cooperative Governance | Municipal infrastructure maintenance | 25 000 | The Municipal Infrastructure Support Agency (MISA) will capacitate and support 15 municipalities to adopt labour-intensive methods in the delivery of infrastructure maintenance projects, leveraging funds in the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG). |
| Trade, Industry and Competition | Global business services sector development incentives | 8 000 | The Global Business Services incentive programme has been reinstated, with incentives to create 8,000 new jobs. Of these, 7,572 jobs have been created to date. |
| Health | Expanding enrolled and auxiliary nurses | 5 531 | Provinces have begun the process of recruiting enrolled and auxiliary nurses from existing databases of unemployed professionals. |
| Science and Innovation | Graduate programmes at the HSRC, WRC and CSIR | 1 900 | The department is supporting a range of programmes targeted at young science and social science graduates. All build on prior experience in similar programmes, and implementation is on track. |
| Public Works and Infrastructure | Public employment in water and energy efficiency, Welisizwe Rural Bridges programme, facilities management and waste management | 1 560 | A total of 1,875 participants have been recruited across various programmes, exceeding the target by 315 |
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