The provincial government, led by the premier, Refilwe Mtshweni-Tsipane, embarked on a number of initiatives to create about 90 000 employment opportunities in the province in the current financial year.

Mtshweni-Tsipane announced this during a business breakfast session on job massification with local key stakeholders at the Emnotweni Arena on Tuesday August 1. The session was attended by deputy ministers, MECs and executive mayors.

She said the Mpumalanga Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan is central to the initiatives to recalibrate the economy and create sustainable employment opportunities in the short to medium term.

“The focus at the moment is on job massification and enhanced skills development. This will involve thousands of employment opportunities that are being created through infrastructure and social programmes implemented by various departments in the province,” she said during her keynote speech.

“Together with our municipalities, we will create strategic partnerships to ensure our people get the employment opportunities they desperately need. We have partnered with various Sector Education and Training Authorities [SETAs] in diverse trades, such as diesel mechanical engineering, construction, supply chain management, information and communication technology, infrastructure, local government and hospitality.”

Mtshweni-Tsipane said the provincial government has identified skills development as one of the critical support pillars for the Mpumalanga Economic Growth and Development Path and its strategic human resource development priorities.

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These include the strengthening of the education system, integrating the skills the provincial economy requires with initiatives and programmes at higher education level, aligning bursary awards with the required skills to drive the economy, forging strategic partnerships with significant partners, and building a capable and efficient public service workforce.

“I am happy to see the growing collaboration of our government departments with the SETAs and Further Education and Training Institutions [FETs] for the realisation of our provincial priorities. The signing of the memorandum of understanding between the SETAs, FETs and the provincial government is a welcome development and significant milestone in our endeavour to make skills development a reality in our province.”

Mtshweni-Tsipane said it is hoped the job massification initiative will tackle the province’s unemployment rate. “Based on the latest quarterly labour force survey by Statistics SA, Mpumalanga witnessed a worrying surge in the number of unemployed individuals during quarter one of 2023, reaching a record high of 713 361 individuals, or 38.5% of the labour force.”

She said the latest Provincial Socio-economic Review and Outlook shows that in 2021, 50.3% or approximately 2.3 million of the Mpumalanga population lived below the lower-bound poverty line of R890 per capita per month.

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“Our country and province continue to face unprecedented levels of youth unemployment. We are identifying opportunities and the roll-out of skills development initiatives that are aimed at empowering our people, especially the youth, with the skills to participate in the green economy and the renewables industry value chains.”