HR Pulse

Jobs Fund creates new jobs at ‘too high a cost’

Head of the Jobs Fund, Najwah Allie-Edries, has conceded that the cost of creating new employment under the programme is exorbitant and that the real answer to job creation lies with thriving private-sector enterprises.  
The average cost per job that the Jobs Fund has created was R52,000, excluding the cost of the fund’s administration.  The cost of creating a job in the agricultural sector, the new focus of the next programme, would be much higher.  "It is very expensive to create a new job in the economy," she said.  The Jobs Fund alone was not enough to deal with the unemployment problem and the fund had to be taken together with the government’s other programmes such as the expanded public works programme (EPWP), community works programmes and incentive programmes, Allie-Edries indicated.  Yet, she advised that the fund created real employment with associated benefits and not job opportunities as was the case with the EPWP.  

The Jobs Fund was established in 2011 to co-finance public and private sector projects with the potential to contribute to sustainable job creation.  The funds are allocated via a competitive process of calling for proposals.  The funding the state provides has to be matched by project finance.  There have been four calls for proposals so far with the fifth one, earmarked for the agricultural sector, closing last month.  African National Congress MPs expressed concern over the high cost per job and questioned whether the funds — allocated from the fiscus — could not be more fruitfully spent elsewhere.

Source: SA Labour News