Unemployment Post 1994

Eighteen years down the line and South Africans are still oppressed, economically. We are still struggling. Everybody thought South Africa would be a better place to be in, to live within its borders with the poor being economically empowered, with free education and a better life for all. Instead the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. People also thought that there would be no racial favors in terms of employment and gender equality.

Since democracy in 1994, South Africa is headed downwards, the mines closing, factories closing, investors leaving the country, some of which are white South Africans (who thought that maybe black majority South Africans would want to avenge Apartheid), the companies retrenching employees because they can’t keep them on their payrolls and the corruption behind the Black Economic Empowerment program. The youth is the most affected group, those who went to school/university, are asked to acquire some kind of experience for them to be able to get employment, gender equality also plays a big part in employment issues and the belief that most companies are still employing white South Africans over the other racial groups.

Unemployment leads people into bad habits, observe small mining towns and South Africa as a whole. People choose prostitution as a way of making money and those acts lead to high rate of teenage pregnancy and the rate of HIV/AIDS increasing. Unemployment leads to crime and I would not say it is ignorance but rather a bad option of making money and the worst employment of them all, and a major national problem.

It would be advisable for our government to establish/find a way to reduce the rate of unemployment. Education should be affordable, graduates need to be employed, increase awareness of HIV/AIDS and more skills development programs established.