Deputy Speaker, the ANC-led government has made significant progress in the battle against a wide range of social challenges confronting our society, such as the decrease in the levels of crime in general and violent crime in particular. However, the creation of employment remains a challenge. Therefore, the ANC has put job creation through meaningful economic transformation at the top of its priority list for this year.
Guided by this understanding and having done its own analysis, the ANC is confident that in the next 10 years the economy will be able to create 5 million new jobs and thus reduce our unemployment rate from the present 25% at least to 15%. These jobs will be achieved through five clusters of job drivers, namely infrastructure, with reference to energy, transport, water, housing, and information and communications technology; the main economic sectors, which are agriculture and agroprocessing, mining and beneficiation; the Industrial Policy Action Plan 2; tourism; and social capital in the form of the social economy, the public sector, and the new economies, which include the green economy and the knowledge economy special opportunities.
It is therefore important that we support programmes such as the Hospitality Youth Initiative, HYI, launched by the Department of Tourism, which is aimed at helping 300 unemployed youth from across the country with training to find meaningful employment. The HYI will target youth between the ages of 18 and 35 years with Grade 12, Senior Certificate, to find meaningful employment in the hospitality service industry at entry level. I thank you.