By OBAKENG MAJE
20 May 2025- The South African Communist Party (SACP) in the North West has called on the North West Premier, Lazarus Mokgosi to declare sky-rocketing unemployment as a disaster. This comes after North West recorded the highest unemployment rate this quarter of 40.4%.
SACP provincial secretary, Madoda Sambatha said the unemployment in the province relates to the mining industry. Sambatha said this is one of the sectors that contributed negatively to the employment figures.
“I was highly shocked that our unemployment statistics in the province are not decreasing. While it is not also decreasing across the province, ours is the worst component. Surprisingly, we are credited as one of the provinces that have mineral deposits still not extracted from the ground.
“So, we call on Mokgosi to declare unemployment statistics and status in the province as a provincial disaster. Each provincial department and private sector must be convened to come up with options on how to address the disaster of unemployment,” he said.
Sambatha further said unemployment is easily a disaster of hunger and inequality. He added that they call for the implementation of the National Development Strategy that was adopted by the government.
The ANCYL Provincial Secretary, Brian Huma shared the same sentiments. Huma said they have noted with sadness the Q1 of QLFS and its unintended consequences on the plight of young people.
“North West as a province forms part of the 50.2 % unemployment rate of young people in South Africa. We further note that young people face the highest barriers of entry to entering the workforce. Whilst the challenges facing young people are not new as a result they are trending negatively in many cases.
“The report by Statistics SA, makes a good point by sharing the uneven ground between the rural youth and urban youth. This is corroborated through the staggering 58% of unemployment, which is mainly attributed to the economic exclusion,” he said.
Huma said the situation has to be turned around. He said with three public TVET colleges and 6 state colleges of agriculture, nursing and hotel schools respectively being present in our province we need to propel the revolution of making sure that young people acquire impactful skills that will contribute towards the growth of our province.
“We have made significant points as far as the reforms are concerned in the province. The first point is on our state of SOEs and how they ought to be realigned for a better realisation of the impact they will have in as far as economic growth and job creation are concerned.
“Further support the move for an establishment of a road agency of the province and further advancing for the absorption of many graduates and artisans that are unemployed to propel the transformation and growth agenda for our province,” said Huma.
The Guardian 