Theme: “Investing in Enterprises. Advancing Employment. Driving Transformation."
Programme Director,
Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Honourable Zuko Godlimpi,
Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour, Hon Judith Nemadzinga Tshabalala
Chairperson and Whip of the Portfolio Committee of DEL, Hon Maneli and Hon Nontsele
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee of DTI&C Hon Mzwandile Masina
Senior Executive of the National Empowerment Fund,
Senior executive of the DEL and Unemployment Insurance Fund,
Chairpersons and Chief Executive Officers of our public entities,
Chairpersons of the Boards of DEL and DTI&C and their Entities
CEOs and captains of industry,
Representative of the City of Johannesburg Mayor, Cllr Nomoya Mnisi,
Representatives of organised business and organised labour,
Members of the media,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning!
South Africa celebrates Heritage during the month of September, yesterday having been the Heritage Day. During this time, in homes and communities across our country, we honour the languages, traditions and histories that have shaped us. We remember those who built our communities, defended our dignity and made it possible for us to stand together as one nation.
Heritage is also a responsibility to the generations who come after us. We have inherited a democracy shaped by extraordinary courage. We must ensure that its promise reaches a young person searching for a first job; a woman trying to grow her business; a worker facing retrenchment; and a person with a disability whose talent has too often been overlooked.
Fifty years ago, the young people of 1976 insisted that their future could not be decided without them. This Golden Jubilee challenges us to move from protest to progress. The freedom for which they struggled must find expression in opportunity, ownership, decent work and sustainable livelihoods.
That is why this launch belongs on the Heritage Day calendar.
Today, the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the National Empowerment Fund are each committing R500 million to a R1 billion partnership. Its purpose is to expand access to finance for qualifying enterprises, strengthen businesses with the capacity to grow, and contribute to the creation and retention of jobs.
The significance of this partnership lies in what two institutions can achieve together. The UIF brings its employment and labour activation mandate. The NEF brings its enterprise finance and development capability. By joining those strengths, they can support businesses with the potential to grow and employ more people.
But public finance is only one part of the answer. A business also needs customers, capable workers, reliable suppliers and a route into larger markets. That is why today's agreement should be the beginning of more partnerships, across government and with business, labour and development institutions.
We are investing in the people who build businesses, take risks, serve customers and create work in our communities. We are also recognising a central lesson of South Africa's development strategy: if we want employment at scale, we must enable small businesses to start, survive and grow.
The National Development Plan anticipated that about 90 per cent of the new jobs envisaged by 2030 would come from small and expanding firms. The Small Business Institute's baseline study found that South Africa's largest employers, including government, accounted for 56 per cent of existing jobs—a reminder of how far we must go. The United Nations estimates that micro, small and medium enterprises account for roughly 90 per cent of businesses and 60 to 70 per cent of employment worldwide.
We need a fuller picture of our own economy, which is why the Department is now partnering with Statistics South Africa to examine the contribution of SMMEs to job creation, including informal enterprises. Better evidence must lead to better action: simpler processes, finance that reaches local businesses and, above all, access to markets. This UIF–NEF investment must therefore be matched by large companies opening their supply chains so that more small enterprises can grow into lasting employers.
A small firm needs customers, working capital, suitable equipment, reliable infrastructure, practical business support and a fair opportunity to compete. As it grows, it needs people with the right skills. Often it needs one established buyer willing to give it a first substantial contract.
I congratulate the leadership and teams of both UIF and NEF for bringing this initiative to this point.
The real test begins now: when an enterprise secures support, wins customers, expands production and employs more South Africans. We must follow that journey and measure the result.
We meet at a moment that demands urgency. Statistics South Africa's latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey recorded an official unemployment rate of 33.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2026, with 8.5 million people unemployed. Behind those figures are households making difficult choices and young people whose qualifications, energy and ambition are waiting for an opening.
The economy needs faster growth. Established firms need to invest and expand. More small, medium and micro enterprises—our MSMEs—need to become sustainable employers. And more people need a practical route into the skills, experience and opportunities that a growing economy requires.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has placed inclusive growth and job creation at the centre of the Government of National Unity's programme, alongside reducing poverty and the cost of living, and building a capable, ethical developmental state. These priorities reinforce one another. A growing enterprise employs people; employment strengthens households; and a capable state gives investors, workers and entrepreneurs confidence to plan for the future.
Finance alone does not guarantee a job. A funding decision should be informed by an enterprise's market, its ability to deliver, its plans for growth and its credible employment potential. After funding, we must follow the results. We need to know which firms grew, which jobs were created, which jobs were preserved and whether those opportunities endured.
This is how we honour the public trust placed in these institutions: through sound decisions, practical support and measurable outcomes.
A loan alone will not turn a small enterprise into an employer. A manufacturer may need working capital to fulfil a large order; a township food business may need to meet a buyer's quality standards; and a local service provider may need a reliable pipeline of contracts before taking on apprentices. Each has the potential to create jobs, but each needs sustained demand and the means to deliver.
Our institutions must connect finance to customers, enterprise support to skills, and procurement to supplier development. When a capable small business can win work, fulfil it and secure the next order, it can invest with confidence and employ more people. That is how we help small and expanding firms become the engines of job creation envisaged by the National Development Plan.
In my 2026 Budget Vote, I told Parliament that the Department's programmes must work together as a pathway into employment. Our Public Employment Services are tasked with registering more than one million work seekers, listing 125,000 opportunities, placing 75,000 people into work and learning opportunities, and providing employment counselling to 280,000 work seekers. Each number represents a person who should be able to find a clearer route to an opportunity.
I also set out the repositioning of the Labour Activation Programme around three connected pillars: skills shaped by real demand; workplace experience and placements; and enterprise support that enables MSMEs to create work. The programme is intended to recruit 200,000 unemployed people in 2026/27, as part of a commitment to reach 605,000 beneficiaries over the medium term.
The principle is straightforward: we must know where an opportunity lies before we train someone for it. We must secure more places where young people can gain experience. And we must support enterprises that can absorb workers, serve customers and remain viable.
Our enterprise pillar gives the National Development Plan's vision a practical route through the Department's work. We can help a small firm find suitable candidates. We can work with partners to address a skills gap. We can link enterprise finance and development support to a realistic growth plan. Then we can assess whether those combined interventions helped the business employ people.
This is why partnerships with our sister institutions matter. In the Budget Vote, we committed R350 million to the National Pathway Management Network partnership to support placements for 130,000 young people, and R95 million through the Industrial Development Corporation's Youth Employment Innovation Projects for 7,000 young people. These initiatives connect different parts of the employment journey. Today's UIF–NEF partnership strengthens the enterprise side of that journey.
We need all these routes. Some young people will find work in established companies. Others will enter through internships, work integrated learning or supplier networks. Some will build businesses of their own. Our responsibility is to make those routes visible, credible and connected.
That is also why labour regulation and enforcement remain part of our employment agenda. South Africa needs more jobs, and those jobs must respect the dignity and rights of workers. Fair rules, effective inspections and reliable dispute resolution help create a labour market in which responsible employers can compete, and workers can build secure lives.
A growing small enterprise should be able to understand its obligations and receive practical guidance. As it adds employees, it should be able to operate with confidence. Enterprise growth and decent work must advance together.
The President has called government and business into a deeper partnership for growth and jobs. In August, he launched Phase 3 of the Government–Business Partnership, with a shared ambition to raise growth and contribute to one million additional jobs by 2030. Its work includes youth employment, alongside action on energy, transport and logistics, and crime and corruption.
The business–government interministerial coordination established under the President gives us a way to connect these efforts across government. The Department of Employment and Labour has a distinct contribution to make we understand work seekers, labour market services, worker protection, job preservation and activation. Our colleagues in trade and industry, small business development, higher education, the Presidency and development finance bring other essential tools.
The opportunity before us is to bring those tools to the same enterprise and the same employment challenge. If an entrepreneur receives finance but cannot reach a market, growth will stall. If a company wants to expand but cannot find appropriately skilled applicants, vacancies will remain open. If a young person completes training without a route into a workplace, we will have missed the point of the investment.
Coordination means finding these gaps early and closing them together. It means aligning finance with procurement opportunities, skills with employer demand, and placement services with real vacancies. It means using the President's business–government partnership to resolve barriers that no single institution can resolve alone.
The UIF–NEF partnership is a contribution to that national effort. It gives us a platform to support enterprises and learn, through their results, how to strengthen the route from investment to employment.
And this brings me directly to the chief executives and captains of industry here today.
You know where demand is growing. You know which suppliers could expand if they had capital and a reliable contract. You know which occupations you struggle to fill and where a young person could succeed if given a first opportunity. We need that knowledge at the table, alongside your investment and your willingness to open doors.
I invite you to partner with the Department of Employment and Labour, the UIF and the NEF in the build-up to the Presidential Job Summit on Youth Employment. Bring forward projects that can expand production. Identify MSMEs in your supply chains that can grow with appropriate support. Offer workplace placements and apprenticeships with a serious prospect of progression. Share your skills needs so that training responds to actual demand. Tell us where government processes are holding back a viable employment opportunity, and work with us to fix them.
To those leading large companies: your supply chains can become pathways into employment. Consider how much more local enterprise development could achieve if emerging suppliers had a fair chance to compete, clear quality standards, technical support and prompt payment. A purchase order can give a capable small firm the certainty to invest. A reliable payment cycle can help it keep its workers. A long-term supplier relationship can allow it to train and employ more people.
To development finance institutions: let us work across institutional boundaries. Where mandates complement one another, we should join them around credible businesses and track the outcomes together.
To organised labour: your voice is essential. Workers understand both the promise and the pressures of economic change. We need your partnership in protecting jobs, supporting skills transitions and ensuring that new opportunities meet the standard of decent work.
To young people and emerging entrepreneurs: you belong at the centre of this effort. We ask you to bring your ideas, your skills and your determination. We owe you institutions that respond, employers willing to recognise potential, and programmes that lead somewhere tangible.
Our ambition for the Job Summit is clear. It must be a marketplace of commitments: investment linked to enterprises; training linked to demand; placements linked to employers; and every major undertaking linked to an accountable delivery plan.
I ask the CEOs present to bring proposals we can act on. Which suppliers can you bring into your value chain? How many young people can you take into meaningful workplace experience? Which investments could grow if government and business resolved a specific obstacle together? What commitment can your organisation make to help an MSME become a sustainable employer?
The build-up to the Summit starts with actions such as the partnership launched today.
The generation of 1976 gave South Africa an enduring example of courage. Our generation must answer with the courage to change what is failing, to work across boundaries and to deliver opportunities at the scale our country needs.
I want a young person listening today to hear this clearly: we see your ambition. We understand that waiting has a cost. Your country needs your contribution, and we are bringing institutions and partners together to create more ways for you to make it.
I want the entrepreneur facing a closed door to hear that we are working to connect finance, markets and employment. And I want every worker to know that, as we pursue growth, their dignity and protection remain central to our mandate.
Today, the UIF and NEF commit R1 billion to a shared purpose. I call on business to meet that commitment with enterprise opportunities, market access, workplace places and investment. I call on every partner in government to help turn those commitments into delivery.
Let this launch mark a practical step towards the National Development Plan's vision of small and expanding firms as engines of employment. Let us invest in enterprises, advance employment and drive transformation together.
In honour of the youth of 1976, let 2026 be the year we put young South Africans to work.
I thank you.
© 2019 - The South African Department of Employment & Labour
