LEHOHLA: GOVT FAILING TO MEET NDP EMPLOYMENT TARGETS

Statistician-General Pali Lehohla says government is simply failing to meet its own national development targets and it seems unlikely it will reach its goals set for 2030.

Lehohla was commenting on the third quarter labour force survey which was released in Pretoria on Tuesday. The figures show unemployment increased to 27.1% the highest it’s been since 2003.

According to the National Development Plan, government’s target is to reduce employment to 14% by 2020 and 6% by 2030.

Lehohala says the plan for this year hasn’t yielded the desired results.

“Fourteen percent unemployment? No we are very far from that. We have shown that we are a number of percentage points above from that, and the direction in which unemployment is moving is departing from what we are targeting in 2030.”

The key sectors that have recorded significant growth are construction and finance, while mining registered a loss for the third consecutive quarter.