Regina Moholo, 40, a single mother of two who also looks after four other family children, has been unemployed for the past 10 years.
“To me Workers’ Day is just a public holiday and I cannot celebrate the day because I am unemployed. Unemployment is the pain in my heart, trauma in my mind and a gravel road in my life, that’s how I feel. I am pleading with our government to create jobs because we are suffering,” said Moholo.
She was part of the group of unemployed graduates and job-seekers who gathered at Masekeng Stadium in Batho location near Bloemfontein yesterday. The gathering was organised by the Mangaung Concerned Community (MCC) to hear from unemployed people their problems as the country celebrated Workers’ Day yesterday.
According to Stats SA in its Quarterly Labour Force Survey released in August last year, at least 8-million people were unemployed before the end of last year. The second quarter of 2022 saw the number of unemployed youth (aged 15 to 34) increase by 2% (or 92,000) to 4.8-million from the first quarter.
Moholo, from Tambo Square, lost her job as a cook at Mangaung Primary School in 2013 after she was retrenched. She has an Early Childhood Development qualification.
She said the past decade had been difficult raising a big family as she had to juggle the money she gets through government grants.
“I have two children and four others who are my brother’s. My brother is also unemployed. I once volunteered as a cleaner to make ends meet but the contract expired in less than three months.
“Life is difficult because we are surviving with two children’s grants, which is now R500 per child,” said Moholo.
Nonzame Mbuti, 54, from Hostel One has also been without work for 10 years and is struggling to get a job.
“My last job was in February 2013 as a Bar Lady and since then we have been living in poverty in my house. I am a single parent and the only income is from my child’s grant. Sometimes we go for days with no food in the house. I am pleading with the government to at least assist us by creating employment,” said Mbuti.
Ramaleke Letlhoo, 36, a University of the Free State graduate in Social Sciences, said he had been unemployed for almost two years. After he graduated in 2012 he worked for an insurance company in Johannesburg until he was retrenched.
“I moved back to Bloemfontein and since then I have been applying for jobs with no success. I also have certificates in Health and Safety and Risk management but that too hasn’t helped me in securing a job,” Letlhoo said.
“What I’ve seen is that there are people who are not qualified for jobs and are hired, so the graduates will continue suffering. They say education is the key to success but the door is closed to many of us,” said Letlhoo.
MCC spokesperson Franky Diseko said unemployment was a pandemic that needed to be dealt with. “We do not need employment experts for people to work, we know for a fact that corruption, which is also a pandemic in our area, has an impact on the unemployment rate.
“The purpose of the gathering was not to celebrate Workers’ Day today because people are unemployed, but it was to hear what people need so we can push the government or our municipality to hire people because the city needs people to clean it as it has many illegal dumping sites,” Diseko said.
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