Hon Speaker, the Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report of the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour does not adequately grasp - let alone address - the monstrous magnitude of South Africa's unemployment crisis.

In 1994, there were 3,6 million unemployed South Africans. In 2019, the number is over 10 million. Two adults in every five cannot find work. In 1994, the official unemployment rate was 20%. Today, the rate is 29,1%, the highest in 11 years.

Every single day, for the past 10 years, almost 900 South Africans join the ranks of the unemployed. Our youth bear the brunt of it. Yet, nearly six months after rebranding, the Departments of Employment and Labour have still not reconfigured to tackle its expanded mandate of job creation.

The department should be focusing its efforts on supporting labour- intensive sectors like light manufacturing and tourism to create new jobs and take on new workers. This is where the opportunity for growth and an access to a global market of seven billion consumers lies.

Through deregulation, the department should be making it easier for business to absorb large numbers of relatively of unskilled workers into productive employments in

technologically advanced sectors. It should be championing the cause of small business owners who are being choked by the extension of collective bargaining agreements and other onerous labour regulations.

Hon Speaker, in the face of the challenges that confront us, the observations and the recommendations contained in this report are feeble and the DA cannot support them. I thank you. [Applause.]