Johannesburg – The Department of Employment and Labour seeks to revamp its labour activation programme (LAP) to deepen its impact on job creation initiatives and help integrate the unemployed into the labour market.
The Department’s Director-General, Thobile Lamati said the goal of the revamp is to shorten the response time and make an impact immediately.
The workshop is being attended by departmental senior officials from various branches such as the Public Employment Services and those of its entities such as the Unemployment Insurance Fund, the Compensation Fund, and Productivity SA.
Lamati said the workshop needs to question what type of LAP “we want to see”?
In a statement, the department said, “Has in the main historically been managing its LAP via the Unemployment Insurance Fund. Labour Activation Programme refers to deliberate interventions designed to integrate or reintegrate the unemployed into the labour market.
“The objective of LAP is to enhance employability, enable entrepreneurship and preserve jobs”.
Lamati said South Africa’s broad unemployment rate currently sitting at 42 percent was concerning and was too high by any standard.
He further added that the reality facing South Africa today is that the economy is faced with structural challenges in regard to skills mismatch and that the economy is not growing fast to absorb the “growing army of the unemployed”.
“Faced with this reality like any country, South Africa has adopted active labour market policy interventions. Active labour market policies are our shield. This means that we need to stimulate the demand and supply. LAP is part of our active labour market intervention policies to deal with unemployment,” he said.
Lamati said the job of the department was to work with other stakeholders who are involved in job creation to help the unemployed into employment and business opportunities.
“Over the next few days – we will look at the structure, monitor the impact of our interventions in responding to the needs of the unemployed,” Lamati said labour activation has since its inception become an important cog of our unemployment interventions and a game-changer to work seekers in general.
Lamati said some of the models that will be considered include – flexicurity; mutual obligation and active inclusion for all.
“Through this proposed LAP revamp we want a high degree of efficiency – no matter the model. The focus is not on the institutional arrangement or the structure. Our focus should be on how best we make the programme highly efficient. The structure is not an overriding factor.
“We also need to protect existing jobs,” Lamati said.
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