[ T HO U G H T LE AD ER SHIP ARTIC L E ]
Entrepreneurship the answer to post Covid economic revival A viable alternative to formal employment for the multitudes of unemployed people in SA BY VUSI FELE
T
he outbreak and global spread of Covid-19 will go down as one of the most disastrous pandemics in modern human history, with more than 178-million confirmed cases recorded globally to date and nearly 4-million people dead. The last time the world experienced a pandemic of this nature and scale was almost a 100 years ago, when the “Spanish flu” killed about 50-million people. The Covid-19 pandemic necessitated the total shutting down of economies around the world as governments battled to contain the spread of the virus and minimise its impact. As we count the cost it is clear that so far the consequences have been nothing short of catastrophic. The pandemic has disrupted the way we live and work, our livelihoods and brought global economic activity to a near standstill in much of 2020. As a result, global GDP for 2020 contracted by 4.3% and is expected to make a slow rebound to about 4% in 2021.
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In SA the economy contracted by more than 7% year-on-year in 2020, with an estimated 3-million jobs lost. According to the latest Stats SA employment figures for the first quarter of 2021, the number of jobless people stood at a record high of 32.6%. More people are expected to lose their jobs as we continue to feel the effects of Covid-19 and as the economy struggles to recover. Young people in particular make up the bulk of the unemployed in SA today. The increase in SA’s unemployment rate had already been on an upward trend even before the onset of Covid-19 due to an economy that’s been sluggish for the better part of the past two decades. This despite concerted efforts from the government, private sector, NGOs and other stakeholders to curb the trend. These sobering numbers provide fertile ground for social instability, especially in the
context of the pandemic. If not addressed soon and effectively, the humanitarian and sociopolitical effects on the country could be deep.
