Moves to Revive Souht Africa’s Wobbly Brandy Industry

BRANDY makers are working to revive interest in their product amid declining local consumption.
SA is the world’s seventh-largest producer of brandy by volume and focus has been primarily on the domestic market. However, demand has been steadily contracting, with many locals choosing imported whisky ahead of brandy.

 

Since 2006, when the brandy tax rebate was withdrawn, consumption has dropped by 18.5-million litres a year to reach 30.2-million litres for the 12 months to June 2015.
With five litres of wine required to produce one litre of brandy, this has had serious implications on employment in the industry. The Department of Agricultural Economics at Stellenbosch University estimates that the decline in the consumption of brandy between 2006 and 2013 resulted in the loss of R1.56bn in economic value-add to the South African economy and a loss of 7,526 job opportunities.

Nigeria FG to train 370, 000 artisans in 2016

The Federal Government plans to train 370,000 artisans this year to boost skills development and employment generation. Mr Afolabi Imoukhuede, Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Job Creation and Youth Employment, disclosed this last week, at the flag-off of the Construction Skills Training and Empowerment Programme (C-STEmp), in Abuja. “The Federal Government has plans to train 370,000 artisans this year…It has already been decided. We have had a fruitful discussion on it with the Vice President and relevant ministers and we are looking forward to working with the C-STEmp to achieve the goal,” Imoukhuede stated.

A job without work is not all it’s cracked up to be

MORE than a decade ago, I was in a job in which if I had sat down at my desk and worked for 100 hours straight, I would be only slightly less behind than when I started. I was a newspaper editor, stuck in the never-ending grind that caused me to begin having a regular daydream.
Wouldn’t it be nice, I would tell myself as I faced down one deadline after another, if I had a job in which I could just sit still for eight hours a day. No duties, no meetings, no responsibilities — just enter an office, sit down at a desk and collect a pay cheque at month end.

 

At the time I never believed such a job existed, except perhaps in a few dusty corners of the government. But then, after suffering complete burnout in my newspaper job and finding myself back on the market, I discovered first hand that there was such a position in the private sector.

How Emotionally Intelligent Are You?

But how do you know your level of emotional intelligence?

First of all, you should understand that, unlike IQ, no one can summarize your EQ in a single number. Know someone with great self-confidence, but zero empathy, for example?

 

I think of emotional intelligence in terms of a profile of specific competencies that range across four different areas of personal ability:

Jobless total falls to lowest since July 2008

UK unemployment has fallen to its lowest rate since July 2008, official figures have shown.