The contentious 100, 000 jobs :: Mmegi Online

A total of 1, 204 employees were retrenched between April 2020 and March 2023 under President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s watch but the State of the Nation Address (SONA) statistics show that Masisi ‘created’ 96,864 jobs between 2018 and 2022. Mmegi Staffer MOMPATI TLHANKANE looks at Masisi’s contentious numbers since he took over the presidency on April 1, 2023.

Masisi presented his first SONA on November 5, 2018 with an expansive agenda. But he revealed then that he had made several policy pronouncements that are primarily meant to address, as a matter of urgency, the twin problems of poverty and unemployment particularly amongst young people. Masisi, however, is still confronting the unemployment challenges as he presents his sixth SONA this Monday.

Despite the unemployment rate slightly dropping from 26% last year to 25.4% this year, many critics have often labelled Masisi’s yearly speech the usual ‘November ritual’. COVID-19 has obviously exacerbated the divide between those who are employed and those who are unemployed but Masisi’s numbers tell a different story than the reality on the ground.

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