Mthunzi Mdwaba: South Africa’s Jobs Crisis, Broken Skills System & the Economy Running on Fumes

Professor Mtunzi Mdwaba joins Mike Sham to unpack South Africa’s unemployment crisis, broken skills system, weak business environment and the policy failures holding the economy back. They discuss why South Africa never built a proper employment policy, why the SETA system is failing, how entrepreneurship has been misunderstood, and why the informal economy could be one of the keys to growth. Mdwaba also explains why government needs to understand business, productivity, competitiveness and skills if South Africa is serious about creating jobs. Chapter 0:00 Intro 0:58 Mtunzi Mdwaba joins State of the Nation 1:52 South Africa’s unemployment crisis 3:05 Pre-1994 skills and infrastructure 4:22 Did SA throw the baby out? 6:02 Ideology vs rational leadership 8:52 Name changes vs service delivery 10:36 Skills, education and curriculum failure 13:37 SETAs and policy mistakes 15:19 Why SA needs a skills inventory 16:15 No employment policy 17:32 What an employment policy should do 18:14 Future of work, STEM and AI 20:06 What Afrikaner planning got right 21:00 Deployment vs competence 22:43 Industrial policy and black industrialists 24:29 Global Competitiveness Index explained 25:25 South Africa’s competitiveness decline 27:15 Ease of doing business vs productivity 29:30 South Africa’s strengths and work ethic 31:23 Is the economy running on fumes? 32:31 Entrepreneurship failure in SA 33:56 Why entrepreneurs need support 38:43 Enterprise development vs entrepreneurship 40:45 Entrepreneurship in the ICU 41:13 The informal economy debate 41:45 What is the informal economy? 43:30 Informal business is not illicit business 45:03 Why formalising everyone is impractical 47:52 Kasi Connect and township business 50:52 The need for a third way 53:48 Labour inspectors and compliance failure 56:22 Lowering compliance for businesses 57:45 Why global rules fail developing countries 58:19 Closing thoughts Follow @sonacoza on TikTok, Instagram, X, and Facebook Produced by Stream In Studios – https://podcast-room.co.za/ The State Of the Nation is Proudly Sponsored by Pace Car Rental https://www.pacecarrental.co.za/ Use Code : SONA for a discount today!