I see that Cosatu is again pushing for a minimum wage which they want increased to R5 000,00 a month.  I understand the motivation behind it, and I understand that people around the world are pushing for minimum wages, but I just cannot see something like that happening in South Africa.  Those employed will always be quick to say that they like such a minimum wage, but I wonder though how many of those people who have workers assisting them at their house or with their garden would actually agree to give those employees of their own R5 000,00 a month. There are a lot of people in the country who work as domestic workers, for example, and while it would be wonderful if they could all be paid a minimum of R5 000,00, I just don’t see that the vast majority of people can afford to pay that much.  There is no doubt that a good domestic worker is worth at least that, but it is not always about what one is worth – it is about the state of the economy and what people can afford and one must think very carefully before introducing minimum wages in a country which has such a devastating and high unemployment rate.  

One must not forget that the unemployment rate, as is published from time to time, is the percentage of people who are actually looking for a job and it does not include those living, for example, in rural areas who long ago gave up on looking for a job.  There is room to believe that the real rate of unemployment in South Africa is 40% and of course that is precisely why, together with our lack of effective policing and criminal sanctions, we have such a high crime rate.  The first thing we need to do is to attract foreign investors and get more money into South Africa.  One would think that with our weak currency it would be a haven for all sorts of overseas companies to use for their off-shore call centres and outsourcing all sorts of work, from reading radiologist reports to manufacturing.  In regard to the example of radiologist reports, one must never forget that most radiologists sit and look at a computer screen of the X-rays – they do not need to be in the same office, same country or the same continent as to whoever is being X-rayed to do a report on that particular person and frequently are not, but that is the kind of work that we are losing to India as well as outsourcing of secretarial services and the like because highly qualified legal secretaries can be outsourced to India more easily than to South Africa.  I am not going to mention our labour laws again, but that is certainly one of the major problems and it is a pity that with such a weak currency we cannot at least take advantage of our currency by competitively offering our employees to companies around the world.