An End of An Era

The jobs massacre continued this week with #Massmart’s announcement that it had started S189 consultations with its employees as it looked to shed about 1800 jobs at its Game Stores in South Africa. They stated that this is following a business strategy review that they had started in January 2020, which has been hastened by the Covid-19 impact. In addition to this, #Media24 also announced that it would be shutting down five magazines and over two newspapers following the March 2020 lockdown impact. As a result, this would impact over 500 jobs.

When we look further afield UK’s largest local newspaper publisher #Reach also announced that it would be cutting about 550 jobs. This speaks of an end in an era in print publishing due to a reduction in demand and migration to online publication. All this at the cost of jobs. This week many more companies globally announced a reduction in jobs. The list has become so long and certainly growing by the day. The fact that the job losses are happening globally does not make their impact less severe.

As the Covid-19 cases and deaths head for the peak that the Health Minister, #DrZweliMkhize has been warning us of in our country, and as the bitterly cold weather gets even colder, #Eskom decides to leave us in the cold with the announcement of #stage2loadshedding in the heart of winter. This load-shedding will only increase the strain on our already battered economy. I feel that our skills in resilience are truly being tested and honed to the maximum.

The irony is that now that the #lockdown has been eased, this is the time that we need to stay home and not move around unnecessarily to keep ourselves and our families safe and protected. We have to make it through this winter both literally and figuratively. Let’s keep bundled up!