South Africa’s economy is in crisis and truth be told, we all know of this grave reality for the longest time. The job market is far from blossoming, there seems to be an acute undersupply of the talented labor forces and where seen from the standpoint of the past few years, it appears that a lot of local, homegrown talent is leaving the country in the search of better opportunities to far off destinations such as Europe and Canada.
But what can be done now that South Africa’s economy is in crisis? While no sufficiently satisfying answer is known to that regard, what is known is that just how seriously South Africa’s economy is in crisis is no longer hidden from the glaring public eye. Experts have now pointed to some rather telling statistics.
A recent business report published in a leading African media outlet suggests that things are increasingly on the negative side of things as South Africa’s economy battles its persisting crisis. In fact, truth be told, South Africa’s economy is currently in the 70th month of its downward cycle.
In fact, here’s some reality check to both entrepreneurs and industrialists, investors and regular shop owners down in South Africa. It appears that this is perhaps the worst possible time for the South African economy in a seven-decade long period. It’s a known fact that the South African economy remains stuck in its longest downward cycle since the year 1945- just to give an idea of how grave the situation really is.
The above told, to dissect the ground-level realities in South Africa from make-belief, one of the most respected economic and business journals- Bloomberg- submitted an exhaustive report on the aforementioned subject and happened to share the following:
The economy entered the 70th month of a weakening cycle in September, according to the Reserve Bank’s Quarterly Bulletin released Wednesday in the capital, Pretoria. That’s as economic growth and business confidence languish at multi-year lows while an index gauging sentiment in the manufacturing sector shows contraction.
One of the great problems staring Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration right now is the blaring noise created by a lack of jobs, or to put it simply, unemployment.
Business groups and the Reserve Bank have urged the government to implement structural reforms to boost the economy and reduce unemployment. While the National Treasury published a policy paper Aug. 27, which proposes a raft of steps that could increase the average economic growth rate by 2.3 percentage points and create more than a million jobs over a decade, several of the ruling African National Congress’s alliance partners have rejected it.
And that South Africa’s economy is in crisis mode can be sufficiently understood by the fact that the functioning government is fighting a war at two-ends:
While on the one hand, there needs to be an introduction of reforms and some innovation that can bail the fledgling economy out of its current duress what doesn’t help the Rainbow Nation is that the value of the Rand (South African currency) is constantly weakening.
The fact that Africa’s most industrialized economy hasn’t experienced a period of persistent growth since 2013, which is well, over half a decade worth of time, seems to suggest the concern that has marred the beautiful and enterprising country. What also doesn’t help is that the overall business confidence is languishing and touching concerning lows at a time where the manufacturing sector shows contraction.