unemployment | Terry Bell Writes

Browsing All posts tagged under »unemployment«

A digital wake-up call for labour

April 14, 2018

Debates surrounding the delayed and now postponed private placing on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange of Sagarmatha Technologies, featuring the controversial Dr Iqbal Survé, have at least provided a information about the 4th industrial revolution that should be a wake-up call for labour. They ignore this at their peril.

The YES gambit for 2019 SA elections

April 1, 2018

The Youth Employment Scheme (YES) announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa is not unique. Sucvh schemes have been tried — and have failed — before. In fact, YES may add more fuel to the ticking time bomb of dissatisfaction among the army of unemployed youth.

When will the time bomb cease to tick?

March 2, 2018

What the latest Budget has done is, on the one hand, to placate the money lenders and the business elite while, on the other, further alienating and angering the majority of South Africans. The time bomb is continuing to tick. But for how much longer before an explosion occurs?

I have seen the future & it frightens me

September 23, 2017

The automated future is upon us — and it works. But only at the expense of the majority of people who have to sell their labour in order to survive. Yet, if properly managed, such technological innovation could liberate humanity.

Statistics, labour & a no-confidence vote in Zuma

July 28, 2017

There is nothing sinister in the delay in the release of the South African Labour Forces Survey for the second quarter of this year. But it's crucial look at unemployment and income decline is likely to be swamped by media concentration on the no-confidence vote in parliament.

GM quitting SA is a wake-up call to all

May 29, 2017

The General Motors pull-out of South Africa is an excellent example of the dilemma facing more and more companies on a global scale: the need to remain profitable in a world of cut-throat competition in an environment of surplus capacity and production. And for every bit of corporate gain, it will be workers who will bear the pain.

Criminalising desperate mine workers

September 25, 2016

Driven by poverty to artisanal mining, enterprising workers are criminalised for being entrepreneurial. At the same time, the SA government, perhaps with good intentions, seems likely to create a disaster with changes to compensation coverage for miners.

The productivity & growth illusion

September 18, 2016

Politicans, economists and several labour leaders keep telling us that we need more growth and greater productivity in order to claw our way out of the present economic crisis. But this is an illusion as we face the job-loss reality of the 4th industrial revolution.