Southern Africa: Job creation remains a challenge in SADC

Despite improvements in Southern Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2010 compared to 2009, job creation and poverty reduction remain limited. Charles Dan, a representative of the International Labour Organisation expressed this view at a meeting in Windhoek of Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) ministers responsible for labour. He said that GDP for Southern Africa as a whole has improved in 2010, up from negative one per cent in 2009 to 3.7 per cent in 2010. He said the real test of recovery should not be whether the economy in aggregate is back on track but whether there are concrete signs of improvement in the labour market.