Think tank calls for scrapping of SETAs, boosting informal trade to address unemployment

Thebe Mabanga

The Centre for Development Enterprise (CDE), a Johannesburg-based policy think tank, has called on government to make the labour market more flexible, scrap the Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas) and loosen regulations in order to boost informal trade and tackle the country’s persistently high unemployment.

“More than 12 million South Africans want work but cannot find a job. For 17 years, 1 000 people have joined the unemployment queue every day,” said Ann Bernstein, executive director of CDE.

In a new report titled South Africa’s Unemployment Catastrophe: A call for Urgent Action, the CDE also calls for boosting the availability of low cost housing for creating viable economic centres.

More critically, the report dismisses government’s public work programmes such as the Presidential Youth Employment Initiative (PYEI) and the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) as inadequate to decisively address unemployment.

The CDE notes that at the heart of