Reason For Unemployment Essay

There are various reasons for unemployment, such as people not wanting certain jobs because it has no or very little prestige, this occurs in most cases where people come from families that are ‘well-off’, comfortable or if there is no need for them to work because they are not desperate for work because they are not forced to, by their circumstances. Being picky or fussy as to where they want to work or the kind of work that they want to do is also a cause of unemployment. For example, some people, such as students, want to get casual jobs to earn money for themselves, but when they get job offers or there are vacancies at certain places, then they refuse the jobs because they don’t want people to see them or be affiliated with certain places,

However, the loss of production has increased, for example, retrenchment. A lot of companies have already retrenched a lot of its employees to survive with costs. Another reason for retrenchment, which leads to unemployment, is cheap imports. South African textile companies cannot compete with dirt cheap Far East countries, like China, which leads to retrenchment of employees as well as losses. Due to these cheap imports, many local businesses have closed down. Also, extremely strict new labour laws, in favour of employees, do not make hiring new staff attractive to employers.

A historical reason for unemployment is the Apartheid Group Areas Act, that was set up by Hendrik Verwoerd (who was also a sociologist), which caused masses of the South African population to reside far and long distances from workplaces. Therefore, travelling costs could take most of their earnings, more than half of their earnings. So, these people that are affected by long distance travelling (to workplaces) probably do not see the use in working, if it is basically just to cover travel costs, and seems more like a travelling allowance than a