- Title
- Public employment services in the Department of Labour
- Creator
- Pupuma, Taba
- Subject
- Public service employment -- South Africa
- Subject
- Employee-management relations in government -- South Africa Unemployment -- South Africa
- Date Issued
- 2018
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/22990
- Identifier
- vital:30290
- Description
- Employment and unemployment levels and trends are crucial in assisting any government to track the performance of its economy and measure the level of success of its macroeconomic strategies. Studies conducted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) have placed South Africa amongst the countries that have the highest levels of unemployment in the world and reports by Statistics South Africa indicate an increase in unemployment levels every year. The Department of Labour’s (DoL) mandate is driven by the overall Government Service Delivery Outcome, which talks about improving the quality and accessibility of labour market services to contribute to decent employment through inclusive growth. This research study was prompted by the fact that the South African Government, in its pursuit to fight unemployment through the DoL, has established Public Employment Services (PES). This is ‘Programme 3’ of the Department of Labour. The primary function of the Public Employment Services directorate in the DoL is to register unemployed and under-employed employment seekers with the aim of integrating them into the labour market. The service equips the employment seekers registered on the DoL Employment Services of South Africa data base with employment counselling and matches them with opportunities brought to the DoL by employers. The aim of the research was to investigate the role of Public Employment Services programmes at the DoL in alleviating unemployment by guiding employment seekers registered on the department’s employment services of South Africa (ESSA) database to secure employment. The research adopted an interpretivist paradigm as it aimed to investigate the reality and understand it within its context. It uncovered the context of the reality associated with the research by closely perusing data from three regional offices in the Gauteng Provincial Office with specific reference to the City of Tshwane. The study utilised document analysis and a desktop review of existing secondary data relating to the implementation of PES in the DoL. This included relevant and available information in the form of books, academic journals, policy documents, legislation, annual performance reports, strategic plans, media reports, minutes of PES branch meetings and PES Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The study uncovered a number of challenges that prevented PES programmes from fully achieving their intended goal of alleviating unemployment, particularly in the study area of Tshwane. These include information and communications technology (ICT) challenges, human resource limitations, non-alignment with legislation, non-uniformity in following the SOPs, lack of commitment by the DoL to market the service in order to attract employers to use it to source employees. The research revealed that PES has the potential to alleviate unemployment. The DoL needs to focus on the system and on devising strategies to fix the ICT as a top priority, as most of the challenges noted in PES stem from the poor performance of the system.
- Format
- x, 51 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Business and Economics Sciences
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
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