Geordin Hill-Lewis, the DA’s Cape Town mayoral candidate, has pledged to create at least 500,000 additional jobs in the city over the next five years if the DA is returned to government.On the campaign trail on Friday, Hill-Lewis said 418,000 new jobs had been created in Cape Town since he took office as mayor in 2021.He said almost half of all new jobs created in South Africa’s eight metros over the period had been created in Cape Town, adding that the city had created more jobs than Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg, Buffalo City, Nelson Mandela Bay and Mangaung combined.The pledge is part of Hill-Lewis’ five-point plan for Cape Town before the November 4 local government elections.“If you give the DA another term of government in Cape Town, we will work to create at least another 500,000 jobs over the next five years,” he said.The target would mean that Cape Town had added 1-million jobs by the end of the next term since residents entrusted the DA with governing the city.Hill-Lewis said the government did not create most jobs, arguing that businesses, entrepreneurs and investors were responsible for generating employment. The role of the city government was to create an environment in which businesses could invest, expand and employ more people.“Reliable services. Infrastructure that keeps pace with growth. Faster approvals. Less red tape,” he said, setting out the conditions he believed were necessary to support economic growth.Cape Town had invested about R40bn in infrastructure during the current term. In the 2025/26 financial year, the city recorded R12.2bn in capital expenditure, which he said was more than double the amount invested in the first year of the term.About three-quarters of the city’s infrastructure investment directly benefited lower-income households, according to Hill-Lewis.The DA would continue cutting red tape that prevented businesses from growing, eliminate unnecessary fees where possible and invest in energy, water and road infrastructure.Hill-Lewis used Cape Town’s boat building industry as an example of the city’s economic potential, saying the sector had created opportunities through private investment, skills and exports.South Africa was now the world’s second-largest producer of recreational catamarans after France, with Cape Town serving as the hub of the industry. The sector exported more than R4bn worth of boats and ships manufactured in Cape Town annually, he said.The creation of 418,000 jobs should not lead to complacency but should instead encourage the city to pursue a more ambitious employment target.“If Cape Town can create almost half of all the new metro jobs in South Africa over one term, then we can create another half a million in the next,” he said.The More Jobs Pledge is the third of Hill-Lewis’s five pledges to Cape Town residents. He said his broader objective was to make the city a place where businesses could grow and where young people had a better chance of finding work.“More jobs. More opportunity. More hope,” he said.Business Day