We can’t create jobs in South Africa – Minister in the Presidency

Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has admitted that the South African government cannot create employment. 

Instead, the government can only create opportunities for economic development and growth, which lead to job creation by companies. 

“The youth of 1976 must be able to say 50 years later that we have ensured economic opportunities for South Africans,” Ntshavheni told Newzroom Afrika. 

“This is key to dealing with unemployment. There is no government that is going to create employment. Government will create opportunities for economic development and growth.”

“The youth must take it into their own hands and ensure that entrepreneurship is a lived experience, and they are supported. They must challenge us to support them more.” 

This admission, made during a commemoration of the 1976 Soweto Uprising, is stark considering repeated pledges from the ANC and the government to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. 

The ANC, of which Ntshavheni is a member, has particularly seen the state as playing a central role in the economy and as the key driver of economic growth. 

Its most recent national election manifesto, for example, calls for market dynamics to be balanced with “state intervention to foster inclusive economic progress and address historical disparities”. 

Across its election manifestos since 2014, the ANC has outlined its ‘Jobs Plan’, which explicitly puts the state at the centre of job creation and the economy. 

Over the past decade, the party has outlined how the state will play a direct role in job creation through large-scale public employment programmes. 

In its 2014 national election manifesto, the ANC committed to consolidating public works programmes to create six million work opportunities. 

This was then coupled with promises to scale up the Expanded Public Works Programme in 2019 and more pledges to create 2.5 million jobs in 2024. 

Public works have not been the only area where the ANC has promised the creation of jobs in the state. It has promised to create millions of jobs through state-directed industrialisation and internships.

Overall, the ANC has promised to create a total of 10.9 million jobs in its past three national election manifestos through direct state intervention in the economy. 

Promises vs reality

However, while repeated promises have been made since 2014, very little has happened in reality. 

Instead of employment surging and unemployment falling, as promised by the ANC, the problem only got worse as South Africa’s economy stagnated over the past decade. 

The number of South Africans formally employed in 2014 was 15.1 million. In 2026, this number has only risen to 16.8 million, a rise of 1.7 million. 

Over the same period, South Africa’s working-age population surged by 6.7 million people, indicating that the economy cannot absorb a rising number of job seekers. 

The number of unemployed South Africans has risen by 3 million to reach 8.1 million in total. As a result, the unemployment rate has risen to 32.7%.

This is a direct outcome of numerous unfulfilled promises from the ANC-led government over the past 30 years. 

While it has promised to resolve many of South Africa’s social and economic challenges, they have gotten worse instead of better. 

The National Development Plan (NDP), which is the guiding document of the government, lays bare the reality of the ANC’s economic policies. 

The NDP focused heavily on economic growth, which is crucial to improving people’s lives and set a target of annual GDP growth of 5.4%. 

This would result in unemployment falling from 24.9% in 2012 to 14% by 2020 and 6% by 2030. This would require creating around 600,000 jobs annually. 

Instead of getting nearer to these targets, South Africa has moved in the opposite direction. 

Economic growth slowed from 2.4% in 2012 to approximately 1%, well below the 5.4% target set in the National Development Plan 2030.

South Africa’s latest data showed that the unemployment rate rose to 32.7%, a far cry from the 6% target and well above the 24% rate recorded 14 years ago.

However, the ANC’s admission that it cannot create jobs, but only an enabling environment, may indicate a positive change for the country. 

Stanlib chief economist Kevin Lings has been critical of the government’s focus on the wrong things to drive economic growth in recent years. 

“Please do not think the government has done nothing in the past year. The government has done stuff,” Lings told an investment conference in late 2025. 

“What are those things? Expropriation Bill, done. We have new fancy BEE targets. We have the National Health Insurance Act, and we have the BELA Act.” 

This stands in stark contrast to what the government has said it will do over the past year, which includes various proposals to increase the private sector’s role in the economy and boost investment. 

Lings explained that the set of policies implemented by the government will not improve business confidence or make it easier to do business in South Africa. 

“That is the problem with this list,” Lings said. “I ask you, which business says, ‘Look, South Africa has a shiny new Expropriation Act – I need to invest there. Let me go and invest in South Africa’.”

“Really? Which business is that? Which business says they want to invest in that country because they have shiny new BEE targets? I want to invest in them because look at that NHI Act?” 

Lings said that businesses simply will not invest based on the policies implemented over the past year, as they do not move the needle on making South Africa more attractive to investors.