Empoyment and Labour Minister, Thulas Nxesi, officially opened the Butterworth Labour Centre, which will play an important role in the local communities, in supporting work seekers and also easing the task of accessing the services of the department.
This centre is situated in the Mnquma Local Municipality, which falls under the Amathole District Municipality. The office relocated from the old dilapidated office on September 1, 2021.
Nxesi said this centre would offer a broad suite of departmental services, ranging from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, the Compensation Fund (for diseases and injuries on duty) and public employment services (for job seekers including counselling, psychometric testing, registration for job opportunities and general support), as well as striving to ensure decent work through enforcement of legislation by the labour inspectors.
“The creation and preservation of jobs and the mitigation of unemployment are the priorities of government and this was the focus of government’s Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Programme (ERRP). These tasks are made more difficult by the unprecedented levels of unemployment currently standing at 34.5% according to the Stats SA Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of 2022 – a slight improvement on the previous quarter at 35.3%.
Similarly, a 1.9% GDP growth for quarter one of 2022 gives grounds for cautious optimism with GDP returning to pre-COVID levels,” said Nxesi.
According to the minister, through the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s (UIF) Labour Activation Programme (LAP), the department contributes to training of the unemployed as part of government initiatives to stimulate the creation of jobs in the labour market.
He added that in the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period, the LAP had planned for training of 75 000 participants in programmes that enhance their employability.
Department of Employment and Labour chief director: provincial operations, Nomfundo Douw-Jack, said that the journey of opening the new labour centre started in 2016, when it was realised that the old building was becoming uninhabitable due to occupational health and safety hazards. During its construction the labour centre helped by creating 180 jobs,” said Douw-Jack.
