Johnathan Paoli
Statistics South Africa has officially reported that the country’s official unemployment rate has breached the 32% mark again following the recent job losses in the fourth quarter of last year.
Stats SA released the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) on Tuesday and confirmed that five industries have contributed to job losses in the last quarter.
QLFS Director Dihlolelo Phoshoko said that the number of unemployed persons increased by 46 000 to 7,9 million during the same quarter.
Phoshoko said the number of people who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement increased by 218 000 to 13,4 million, while discouraged work-seekers decreased by 107 000 in the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to the third quarter of 2023, resulting in a net increase of 111 000 in the not economically active population.
The director said the changes in employment and unemployment resulted in the official unemployment rate increasing by 0,2 of a percentage point from 31,9% in the third quarter of 2023 to 32,1% in the fourth quarter of 2023, and the unemployment rate according to the expanded definition decreased by 0,1 of a percentage point to 41,1% in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter last year.
Community and social services shed the most, with more than 170,000 people out of a job during the same period, while manufacturing was also down but not nearly as much as construction, agriculture and trade.
Phoshoko said that the fourth quarter results illustrated that the youth remained vulnerable in the labour market.
Opposition party the DA has bemoaned the latest unemployment statistics and said that by failing to relax labour market regulations and improve the quality of the education system the ruling party has failed to fix the structural barriers that stunt the country’s growth and hinder job-creation.
DA Shadow Minister of Employment and Labour Michael Bagraim said the ANC’s insistence on engineering social outcomes have ensured that millions of South Africans remain destitute and out of work, while small businesses remain hampered by red tape, and the automatic extensions of collective bargaining agreements to small and new firms are jobs-killers.
The shadow minister said through legislation such the Employment Equity Amendment Act and its associated race-based regulations, the ANC has become increasingly aggressive in its insistence on enforcing racial quotas in the labour market despite very well knowing that racial quotas deter investment, sap growth, and destroy jobs.
“South Africans can either have a ruling party that is up to the task of running a modern economy and forging an environment conducive to job creation, or it can have the ANC back in power in 2024. It cannot have both,” Bagraim said.
Bagraim said that the party envisaged converting the Social Relief of Distress Grant (SRD Grant) into a Job Seekers Grant, which would require recipients to actively seek work opportunities and provide evidence to the Department of Social Development if they continue receiving the grant.
Trade Union Federation Cosatu said the latest report was disappointing considering that employment figures historically increased during the last quarter of the year.
“The most worrying part of the unemployment statistics is that the mining and possibly the manufacturing sector are likely to see significant numbers of retrenchments as the economy in general and especially these industries, struggle to cope with loadshedding and the massive crises bedeviling Transnet Freight Rail and delays at the Ports,” Acting National Spokesperson Matthew Parks said.
In addition, RISE Mzansi Chief Organiser Makashule Gana and Western Cape Provincial Convenor, Axolile Notywala, are expected to lead a picket calling for a tax relief regime for single mothers.
The picket will raise the plight of single mothers with the party planning on providing single mothers who earn below R500,000 per annum with tax relief on essential items, from baby formula to schooling, following the General Household Survey which found that 44.1% of households were headed by single mothers.
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