"The rate of unemployment among the youth is above 50%. Our view is that it is possible to incentivise firms to hire younger people, while protecting the existing work force and addressing unemployment," Marcus said at a labour law conference in Johannesburg.
The youth incentive, also known as the youth wage subsidy, is aimed at encouraging firms to employ young job seekers through tax incentives. Marcus said a major concern was that the length of time people remained unemployed kept increasing.
Marcus said while the country had made strides in improving access to education, structural problems in the labour sector still existed and skills shortages to help the economy grow remained a problem.
"Given that the economy needs skills, the importation of skills can be exploited and studies have shown that with every skilled immigrant brought in to the country between four to eight jobs are created," she said.
Marcus said while many other countries also faced unemployment, the country's economy needed to diversify to create more jobs.
The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) has opposed to the incentive scheme, arguing it will lead to job losses among older workers.
According to Statistics SA's Quarterly Labour Force Survey released on Tuesday (30 July) the number of unemployed people increased to 4.7m in the second quarter of this year, the highest level yet. Between the first and second quarter of the year, 122,000 people lost their jobs.
Source: Sapa via I-Net Bridge
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