Mayor opens Job Summit

Over 200 delegates from the business community gathered at the summit where the mayor invited them to become social partners of the Ekurhuleni Metro in order to leverage one another’s capabilities and resources for the benefit of local companies and residents.

“The issue of job creation and employability improvement continues to occupy our agenda as the City of Ekurhuleni in view of our high unemployment rate of 38 per cent overall,” said Gungebele.

“Our resolve thus remains that, in order to really provide a better life for all, unemployment and poverty eradication must be systematically and unapologetically tackled head on.”

According to Gungubele, this goal can only be attained by establishing strategic working relationships with social partners such as business, organized labour, civil society and other spheres of government and state owned companies and entities.

“These strategic partnerships are meant to incentivize our social partners to adopt a ‘hands on deck’ approach to job creation through creating a favourable business climate to promote and attract job creating investments,” he said.

This is the second year that Ekurhuleni has hosted the summit, which follows the career expo which was recently held in Alberton over two days.

“The Career Expo and Job Summit actually opened our eyes to the harsh reality that many of our young people are confronted with,” said Gungubele.

“As government we have a role to play, however, we remain resolute that the
private sector is the cornerstone of job creation, as it accounts for 90 per cent of
all jobs in the developing world.”

Speakers at the summit covered the following topics: public interest on job creation, business opportunities in Ekurhuleni, improving and up-scaling initiatives for youth employment, enhancing job creation through SMME development and industrial sectors as key drivers of job creation.