The employment equity strategy encourages employers to work with employees and other stakeholders to review work organisation, define jobs and decide on hiring, training and promotion opportunities. It requires more transparent and accountable decision-making about personnel. And it calls for employers to initiate accelerated measures to afford Black people and women access to new employment opportunities, from which they were formerly barred. But, no matter how flexible, the labour market will not overcome unemployment, by itself. Job creation flows from the investment structure and macroeconomic policies, which define demand for labour.
More jobs also flow out of factors that influence the cost and productivity of workers.
These areas lie outside the competence of the Department of Labour. So we are working with other Departments to develop an employment strategy. We have drafted a framework for this strategy, which we will present to Cabinet soon and which we will discuss with Parliament during my budget debate. When we have developed this strategy into a fully-fledged employment strategy, we expect it will form a central part of the government's input into the Presidential Summit on Job Creation in September or the last quarter of the year. This process should enable us to engage with all tiers of government and to ensure broad consultation with civil society.