July 16, 2012

I've only been in Cape Town a week and I've already felt myself becoming slightly numb to the immense amount of beggars encountered on the street. The homeless seem to the dwarf the number of New York City, or they are simply more open and less abashed by their economic status. When so many people confront you for change or food on a five minute walk to the grocery store, it’s hard not to become indifferent, especially when every single person simply can’t be helped. It also begins to raise personal questions as to whether they should be helped, why they are homeless or unemployed and if giving money is simply enabling them to continue to live a life of begging.

 While the large number of beggars seems to makes sense in accordance with the staggeringly high unemployment rate, near 23%, it is also important to note that a lot of people are engaged in black market activity and jobs that do not show up in the country’s polls or taxes. This includes sellers of vegetables, braii cooks, homemade jewelry and gifts, maids, and other self employed, undocumented work. While this may lower the unemployment rate somewhat, the money received performing these types of jobs are hardly significant, especially in the hopes of supporting a family. There are also exists a large amount of people working as “car parkers” and “garbage men”. These” jobs” are occupied by people that sit on the side of the road near empty parking spaces and attempt to direct and assist cars into parking spots and then offer them a garbage bag to unload any waste from their car. Afterwards, the workers ask for change in reward of their assistance.

I recently read that the fundamental goal of the International Labor Organization is the achievement of decent and productive work for both women and men in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Decent work is then defined as the “promotion of standards and rights at work, to ensure that worker's constitutionally protected rights to dignity, equality and fair labor practices, among others, are safeguarded by appropriate legal frameworks; the promotion of employment creation and income opportunities, with the goal being not just the creation of jobs but the creation of jobs of acceptable quality; the provision and improvement of social protection and social security, which are regarded as fundamental to the alleviation of poverty, inequality and the burden of care responsibilities; and the promotion of social dialogue and tripartism”.

It is interesting then that walking down the road from my house are three guys employed to put on a giant foam finger and point to the mall being refurnished all day. Gas stations employ a much larger amount of people than here in the States; one person to wave you to the pump, one to wipe the windows, one to dry the windows, one to pump the gas and one to handle the money. It just seems as though labor is so abundant and so cheap that “the goal of [not] just the creation of jobs but the creation of jobs of acceptable quality” is not being fulfilled and will be difficult to do so. A paper written by Tamara Cohen and Luendree Moodley at KwaZulu-Natal University entitled Achieving Decent Work in South Africa? cites these very types of jobs and poor economic performance in South Africa as reasons why the informal sector has been steadily increasing. With the rise of the informal sector, “decent work” will become increasingly hard to achieve and poor working conditions as well as exploitation will continue to rise.

This is just my first glance at the unemployment in the small suburb of Rondebosch and surrounding suburbs of Cape Town that I live in. The suburb is bolstered by the presence of students and University of Cape Town and therefore boasts the second richest city in South Africa and an annual growth rate of 4.06%. However, unemployment in Cape Town is still a staggering 18% and so I’m interested to see what the rest of Cape Town and South Africa have in store.