Cape Town – The training lay-off scheme which was designed to deal with the effects of the economic downturn had saved 6375 jobs by the end of September this year.
Minister for Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel, told the National Assembly on Wednesday that the scheme began operating only in January.
Replying to a Parliamentary question from Zwelifile Ntuli of the ANC, Patel told MPs that the smallest company helped under the scheme had only 10 employees, but the largest company had 1500 workers.
"In addition to that we set up a fund to assist distressed companies administered by the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), that saved or created 18 073 jobs," Patel said.
"The IDC and the Unemployment Insurance Fund also launched a development bond, aimed at job creation and an additional 1931 jobs excluding companies that were on any other scheme were saved or created through this."
Patel added that the Commission for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitratoin reported that through their conciliation and mediation between October 2009 and September 2010, 8350 jobs were saved in large scale retrenchment processes.
"We also launched an effort to combat illegal imports and customs fraud" Patel said, "and Sars seized 750 tons of goods by December last year in one sector alone. Translating that to the number of jobs equivalent saved 1400 jobs."
The figures gave an indication of the kind of measures that were in place and the impact that they have had, he said.