![\"Dawie](\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Dawie-Roodt.png\")
<\/a>Dawie Roodt<\/p><\/div>\n
The job problem<\/h3>\n
“Unemployment isn’t the problem in South Africa – employment is,” Roodt said.<\/p>\n
The rush to create jobs (to boost employment) is pushing companies to hire people to ‘dig holes’ – usually at costs that are unsustainable by the business.<\/p>\n
According to Roodt, labour legislation – a fundamental part governing businesses – makes it incredibly difficult to employ people by making labour expensive.<\/p>\n
“The quickest way to make something unattractive (on a mass scale) is to make it more expensive,” Roodt said.<\/p>\n
Telling businesses to employ more people for the sake of job creation is like telling those businesses to use more electricity, “it just doesn’t make sense,” Roodt said.<\/p>\n
The only way to encourage businesses to hire more people is to grow the businesses to a point where they have to employ more people – and that can only be accomplished by growing the economy, Roodt said.<\/p>\n
“The way to do that is to remove the obstacles in the private sector’s way – mainly placed there by the state.”<\/p>\n
Roodt said that labour legislation and tax policies in the country are doing a lot of damage, killing economic growth – and the political stance against privitisation was holding a lot of development back.<\/p>\n
“The state is the single biggest threat to the economy…its policies are like a wet blanket, smouldering growth.”<\/p>\n
“These things are a political question – there is always conflict between politics and the private sector,” Roodt said, adding that it was not only a South African issue, and that the trend was a global one.<\/p>\n
More on the SA economy<\/h3>\n
EFF policies will kill SA economy in 3 years: Economist<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n South African start-up jobs soar<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n ANC has \u201cgiven up\u201d on job creation: DA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n