CAPE TOWN, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Amid growing calls to urgently convene a job summit to tackle rising unemployment, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Wednesday he wanted the envisaged Jobs Summit to "be practical" instead of being hasty.
"We have learnt the lessons of previous summits and accords, and are determined that the outcomes of the Jobs Summit should be practical, measurable, effectively monitored and owned by all parties," Ramaphosa said in the Presidency Budget Debate in Parliament.
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL), along with some political parties, has urged the South African government to urgently convene a job summit in order to solicit a deeper understanding of the unemployment crisis.
According to the latest figures released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) last week, the country's official unemployment rate remains at 32.4 percent among the 15-34 working youth age group, the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, to be followed by Greece (25.2 percent) and Spain (22.2 percent).
In its Quarterly Labor Force Survey, Stats SA said the number of people without jobs rose by a staggering 100,000 to 5.98 million in the first quarter of this year.
The number of job-seekers, meanwhile, has spectacularly risen to 249,000.
The government is working with labor, business and communities to forge a new social compact around job creation, which will form the basis for a broader compact around growth, development and transformation, according to the president.
The Jobs Summit is an important part of this effort, he said.
With preparatory work already underway, the Job Summit needs to produce extraordinary and far-reaching measures to create jobs, said Ramaphosa.
In his maiden State of the Nation Address (SONA) in February, Ramaphosa announced that a jobs summit would be held within the next few months.
However, it remains unclear when the summit will be held. The government has been criticized for moving slowly to deal with rising unemployment.
In its National Development Plan (NDP), the government sets the goal of halving youth unemployment to 6 percent by 2030. But the latest unemployment figures makes the NDP goal "a mockery," the ANCYL said.
