Michael Bagraim writes that if you went to any small business in South Africa and asked them what it cost to create a new job they would look at you askance and quite categorically tell you that the cost of creating a new job is nil. Photographer - Tracey Adams / ANA
At a recent meeting held by the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour, the department reported that it had estimated a cost of R250 000 was required to create a new job.
It said it had spent a much lesser amount on preserving jobs R20 million to preserve 965 jobs.
If you went to any small business in South Africa and asked them what it cost to create a new job they would look at you askance and quite categorically tell you that the cost of creating a new job is nil.
A business, small or large, will only embark upon the new job if it’s going to create profit for that employer.
This anecdotal story tells us how wrong the current South African government has gone. Another twist in the tale is that our ANC government refers to “job opportunities” as opposed to jobs.
A job opportunity could mean anything. Invariably it means a job for a few days or a few months.
It very seldom means a sustainable productive position in our economy.
In other words, when the government tells us that it wants to create 2 million job opportunities it is telling us that it could be anything from a short-term position in the extended public works programme or a curtailed contract in some unproductive scheme.
Even in the entity, which falls within the Department of Employment and Labour, supported employment enterprise, we see enormous wastage and a nightmare. It has been reported on the annual performance of the supported enterprise for 2024/ 25 that they have created during that year, 150 employment opportunities for persons with disabilities.
In other words, almost nothing. The census has revealed that about 6% of our population (if not more) come from the disabled community.
If this is the case, the 150 employment opportunities for persons with disabilities is almost laughable.
To spend millions on this is a crying shame.
These supported employment enterprises employ a full staff complement and spend enormous amounts of money in finally entering into customer agreements with no more than five customers by the end of March 2024.
We see that these factories have been granted R184 million from the National Treasury and are hoping to earn R68 million.
In other words, the businesses have been set up specifically to create a loss.
What is almost unbelievable is that the management of the SEEs (Supported Employment Enterprise) have lamented the fact that they don’t have enough money from the fiscus.
There are dozens, if not hundreds, of welfare institutions in South Africa that run workshops and assisted employment factories, etc. It would be a lot more functional and productive to take some of the SEE money and sponsor these welfare institutions.
The welfare institutions have proved that they can run assisted employment for their recipients at a very small fraction of the projected costs for the SEEs. When first established, it was a good idea to have supported employment enterprises but the way it has been run into the ground it is now completely unsustainable.
We are spending hundreds of millions of rand while the entire footprint of all the SEEs is less than 1 300 people.
Is it not about time we handed over the entire enterprise to various welfare organisations in South Africa?
I am personally involved with Epilepsy Western Cape that runs a workshop very effectively and efficiently on a minute budget. Although they do get a stipend from the government it would make a whole lot more sense for SEEs to be completely disbanded and the monies and production to be distributed to the various welfare institutions dotted all over South Africa.
* Michael Bagraim is a veteran labour lawyer, and a Democratic Alliance MP.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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