Johannesburg - President
Jacob Zuma and leaders of South Africa's trade union federations on Tuesday agreed that jobs had to be created in key sectors of the economy and discussed the need for retirement funds' "increased investment in developmental projects" to support decent work.
The meeting between Zuma and some members of his cabinet and leaders of Cosatu, Nactu and Fedusa follows a similar meeting in March with business representatives.
To attain the government's aim of creating five million jobs by 2020, they agreed to support employment in sectors of the econonmy identified as "jobs drivers".
These include infrastructure, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, tourism and other high-level services.
"The parties agreed on the importance of addressing youth unemployment. Measures to that end should be based on broad agreement and form part of a broader multi-pronged effort to address joblessness," Zuma's office said in a statement after the meeting.
On harnessing retirement funds for job creation, the presidency said: "The parties agreed on the need for a process to ensure that retirement funds contribute to enhanced savings and increased investment in developmental projects that can support the creation of decent work on a mass scale."
It reassured, however, that no change will be made to retirement funds without consultation.
"Retirement fund reform would take place within the comprehensive social security floor policy debate," the presidency said.
Agreement was also reached on skills development and to bolster co-operatives.
At the start of the summit, Zuma said that while the economy had started to show positive signs of recovery, it will take time to recover from the job losses of the 2009 recession. in 2009.
South Africa lost more than a million jobs during its recession in 2009, the first since 1992.
"The employment numbers have recently turned positive and the economic forecasts are also positive, both for higher economic growth and for employment creation," Zuma said.
"Nevertheless, it is likely to take longer for us to recover from the job losses of the 2009 recession and to make a real dent in the 24% unemployment rate that characterises the labour market."
In February's budget, Finance Minister
Pravin Gordhan allocated about R20bn towards job-creation projects in line with the government's aim to create about 5 million jobs by 2020.
Zuma said achieving that target would mean reducing the unemployment rate to around 15%.
He told the unions that the government was committed to addressing labour practises that rob workers of their rights.
"We are now taking steps to implement the undertaking we made that we will address the problems of labour broking and regulate out-sourcing and contract work,"
Some proposed labour regulations, which include increasing benefits to contract workers, have unsettled investors who say the country's labour laws are already restrictive, making it difficult to hire and fire.