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Johannesburg - Youth unemployment in South Africa is the third highest in the world, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) said on Monday.
"About 71% of all unemployed people in South Africa are between the ages of 15 to 29. Most of the them are women, the majority of which have never had a job in their lives," Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said.
He said South Africa ranked third after Greece and Spain.
"Half of the people between 15-29 are unemployed in this country."
The union would stage a protest march in seven cities on Wednesday to highlight youth unemployment and demand solutions.
Employment Tax Incentive Act
The union wanted the Employment Tax Incentive Act scrapped that was signed by President Jacob Zuma in December.
The Act encourages private employers to employ young workers by providing a tax incentive to employers, with government sharing the costs of such employment for a maximum of two years under certain conditions.
Jim said the act stated that no incentive would be paid in respect of employees earning more than R6 000 a month.
"The bulk of the qualifying employees in term of the act pay no tax as the current tax threshold is R67 111.
"This means that an employer can withhold the subsidy he is entitled to from the general tax deduction," he said.
"We are opposed to the schemes where the working class is forced to subsidise capitalists."
An 'attack' on workers
He said the youth subsidy was an attack on workers.
Government was able to create jobs instead of delivering youth to the door of employers to be exploited.
"The Act is based on the assumption that it is 'high' wages that are causing unemployment and not the refusal of the capitalists to invest that leads to joblessness."
Jim said the architects of the Employment Tax Incentive Act were silent about the "investment strike" by the private sector that had been going on in South Africa for many years.
"No one seems to be able to put a figure on this but there is little disagreement that it exists. It is the problem of the refusal to invest on the part of the capitalist class that government refuses to tackle head on," he said.
"It is this avoidance of the real problem that leads them to false solutions such as the tax incentive scheme."
Numsa's protest would be joined by a number of civil organisations.
The union said this was the first of a series of mass action events until 2016.
