The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2021 is expected to increase. The National Treasury has projected the growth rate to be 3.3%. 

Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni said Covid-19 has led the GDP to shrink by 7.2%.

With the vaccination programme finally in progress, the National Treasury has decided to allocate R9 billion towards it. 

Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni confirmed this during his budget speech on Wednesday afternoon. 

You can expect to pay more for alcohol and tobacco, as government has decided to increase the excise duties on these products.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni announced that the excise duties on these products will increase by 8%.

Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni has confirmed that social grants will increase by below inflation rates of between 1.0 and 3.4 percent.

This increase will take effect from April 2021. Along with this, the extension of the temporary R350 grant will come to an end, decreasing grant expenditure by 2.2% over the next three years. 

While delivering the annual budget speech, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni announced that there will be an increase in the personal income tax brackets and rebates. 

In an effort to ease the burden of inflation on individual households, the personal income tax brackets and rebates will increase by 5%. 

Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni announced that the gross tax revenue will be lower this year compared to what was projected in the 2020 budget. 

South Africa's unemployment rate has increased by 1.7% from the third quarter of 2020. 

StatsSA released the Labour Force Survey in the fourth quarter, which showed that the number of unemployed persons increased by 701 000.

This brought the total to 7.2 million, compared to quarter 3 in 2020. 

It’s evident by the significant investments into skills development and educational programmes that Microsoft believes in upskilling our youth to have the right skills to succeed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The second batch of Johnson&Johnson vaccines will be arriving this week, following the recent start of the first phase of the vaccine rollout. 

Health Minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize said a total of 80,000 doses of Johnson&Johnson vaccines will arrive on Saturday, 27 February 2021.

In one of my recent articles I touched on the issue of productivity at the workplace. I mentioned that, now more than ever, businesses and their employees need to team up so as to ensure that the business and its people survive and prosper during and post Covid.

The most frequent question I am asked is, “How do we productively manage employees working from home?” This question is not only important during the lockdown. It will also be crucial post lockdown because the working from home trend will, in many cases, continue forever.

The National Students Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) has confirmed the validity of reports that they will be cutting funding from some programmes this year. 

After lapsing the temporary disability grant, SASSA told all beneficiaries to reapply. This is how the reapplication process works. 

The reapplication process started on 5 January 2021, following the suspension of thousands of temporary disability grants that lapsed in December 2020. 

SASSA made this decision as it had run out of funds to continue with the extension. 

Matric results are out and you might be wanting to get your exam scripts re-marked or rechecked. You can do that by registering!

Registration can be done either at your school or a district office near you. If you need some help figuring out how to do this, you can find instructions on the reverse side of the Statement of Results you collected from your school. 

Learners can now register to write the May/June Senior Certificate (SC) and National Senior Certificate (NSC) examinations.

Registrations for the May/June 2021 exam period are now open for learners who want a second chance to better their results. 

The release of matric results is typically a high stakes time for many students and their parents, but pandemic disruptions throughout 2020 are adding extra angst. This week, the anticipation will be over, but getting these final school marks in black and white can spiral some young South Africans, and their families, into despair and crisis.

The National Senior Certificate Exams from November and December of 2020 were written by more than 1 million candidates and the Minister has now announced the pass rate.  These unusual results saw the overall results drop by 5 percentage points.

The wait is nearly over for matric learners, as Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga will be announcing the matric results today. 

The Minister is expected to give an overview of the national performance of matric learners.