CEOs optimistic about business outlooks, despite risks.
The City of Tshwane plans to use a lottery recruitment system or electronic random draw for 9,000 temporary work opportunities to ensure fairness and transparency, while Mancosa expresses concern about the lack of teacher graduates, which is leading to a low teacher-pupil ratio at schools. Meanwhile, Clover workers continue with their protracted strike and have called on the public to boycott products and PwC’s 25th Annual Global CEO Survey notes optimism among business leaders despite risks.
Not enough teachers graduating
South Africa doesn’t graduate an adequate number of teachers to meet the supply and demand, and a retiring teacher base is starting to skew pupil to teacher ratios in the country’s classrooms, says private higher education institution Mancosa.
“More teachers are leaving than entering the profession. Currently, the country’s initial teacher institutions graduate 15,000 new teachers per year. This is below the 25,000-mark required to maintain an effective teacher-pupil ratio,” said Professor Magnate Ntombela, principal of Mancosa.
National Treasury previously warned that low compensation growth of 0.8 percent over the medium-term expenditure framework period, combined with early retirements, will reduce the number of available teachers in the country, according to media reports.
Clover workers call for product boycott
Striking workers from Clover who marched through Johannesburg's inner city have called for a boycott of Clover products.
The workers, mainly members of the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Fawu) or the General Industrial Workers Union of South Africa (Giwusa), have been on strike for nearly nine weeks.
They are demanding that the company stop plans for further retrenchments and reinstate all workers, among other demands.
Cyber, health and macroeconomic factors concern CEOs
PwC’s 25th Annual Global CEO Survey, which polled 4,446 CEOs, found that South African CEOs are also optimistic about the outlook for their businesses, with 37 percent believing that their revenue will grow over the next 12 months.
Similar to last year, cyber and health risks rank as the leading threats, identified by 33 percent and 37 percent of South African CEOs, respectively.
Macroeconomic volatility also rated highly at 37 percent, with local CEOs being either very or extremely concerned about the potential impact of inflation, fluctuations in GDP and labour-market issues in the coming year.
Unions calls for end to PetroSA retrenchments
The City of Tshwane plans to use a lottery recruitment system or electronic random draw for job seekers in its latest recruitment drive for 9,000 work opportunities for a period of six months, which is funded by the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme.
Luthando Kolwapi, spokesperson for Community and Social Development Services, said to ensure that the process is aligned with the department’s values of fairness and transparency, the City is implementing its lottery recruitment system.
He added that registration on the database remains open and job seekers must be between the ages of 18 and 60, and they should bring along a certified copy of their identity document and proof of residence, which must be attached to the registration form.
