Chairperson, I want to repeat what the diagnostic document broadly states, that one of the key challenges in South Africa is that there are too few South Africans in employment. Employment in the age cohort 18 to 60 stands at 41%, while our peer group countries tend to have an employment rate at around the two- thirds mark. So there are too few pay packets and the market is too small. Inequality is a direct consequence of that.
We are also saying that there is a causal relationship between poor educational outcomes and the rate of labour absorption. These issues must be fixed. And so, the ability to have everybody in decent employment is also a consequence of the transformation of the education system. But you cannot wait for the next generation. These issues must be dealt with, and they must be dealt with sensitively.
It is very important that as a nation we recognise what impediments obtain and work through them. We should not mount high horses that we then cannot dismount later. I think the obligation is to offer all families an opportunity to participate in the economy and to raise their living standards, and that's an agreement we must strike. It's going to be essential that we are able to set these as benchmarks and build off a platform.
We cannot try and construct obstacles to employment creation. That is because we are seeing, at the same time, that the economy is becoming less and less competitive globally, and our manufacturing sector is bleeding at the moment. We have not been able to recover the million jobs lost in 2008- 09. That impact is felt, not by the ideologues, but in the lives of people, and it is for that that we as South Africans must put our shoulders to the wheel. Thank you.