THE economy created 80000 jobs in January, the Adcorp Employment Index revealed yesterday.
But the economy is still 420000 jobs short of the peak employment level it had before the global financial crisis.
The Adcorp Employment Index showed that all employment contract types reported gains in temporary work (7.1%) and agency work 8%. Temporary work now represents 3.87m workers or 30.1% of the workforce.
The index reported gains in employment in January, especially the wholesale and retail trade (13.6%), transport and logistics (8.8%) and government (3.1%).
The report says all occupational categories reported growth in employment, but highly skilled categories (management and professionals) reported the strongest growth (4.7%).
Clerks, service workers and sales and marketing staff reported strong growth (8%). To a great extent, Adcorp's Loane Sharp observes, the improvement in black incomes has been associated with the civil service. "Over the past decade, government employment has increased from 1m to 1.24m.
The proportion of blacks in the civil service has increased from 42% to 74%. Nearly 40% of South Africa's highest-earning blacks are employees of the government," Sharp said.
"Partly this is associated with trade unionisation: 70% of the public sector workforce belongs to a trade union, compared to 26% for the private sector."
Last year the economy created 450000 jobs. But 40% of these jobs came from the public sector. At the height of the global recession in 2008-2009, South Africa lost a million jobs and the country has not been able to recover them.
According to Stats SA, in the fourth quarter of 2011, the unemployment rate dropped to 23.9% with a total of 179000 jobs created.
This supports the belief that the economy rebounded late last year and was likely to record a GDP growth of 3.1% year-on-year. Economic growth creates business confidence and then employment.
Adcorp CEO Richard Pike said the first challenge was economic uncertainty.
"There is just too much uncertainty locally and globally, with what is happening in Europe, that sort of hangs over our head," he said.
"Closer to home, labour has become an unattractive option. Wage inflation has gone above productivity gain. We have had a lot of militant strike action . Labour has become expensive. Regulations price people out of the market and make it difficult to dismiss people for poor performance. These things mitigate against employment."
Bleak outlook on jobs continues
THE economy created 80000 jobs in January, the Adcorp Employment Index revealed yesterday.
But the economy is still 420000 jobs short of the peak employment level it had before the global financial crisis.
The Adcorp Employment Index showed that all employment contract types reported gains in temporary work (7.1%) and agency work 8%. Temporary work now represents 3.87m workers or 30.1% of the workforce.
The index reported gains in employment in January, especially the wholesale and retail trade (13.6%), transport and logistics (8.8%) and government (3.1%).
The report says all occupational categories reported growth in employment, but highly skilled categories (management and professionals) reported the strongest growth (4.7%).
Clerks, service workers and sales and marketing staff reported strong growth (8%). To a great extent, Adcorp's Loane Sharp observes, the improvement in black incomes has been associated with the civil service. "Over the past decade, government employment has increased from 1m to 1.24m.
The proportion of blacks in the civil service has increased from 42% to 74%. Nearly 40% of South Africa's highest-earning blacks are employees of the government," Sharp said.
"Partly this is associated with trade unionisation: 70% of the public sector workforce belongs to a trade union, compared to 26% for the private sector."
Last year the economy created 450000 jobs. But 40% of these jobs came from the public sector. At the height of the global recession in 2008-2009, South Africa lost a million jobs and the country has not been able to recover them.
According to Stats SA, in the fourth quarter of 2011, the unemployment rate dropped to 23.9% with a total of 179000 jobs created.
This supports the belief that the economy rebounded late last year and was likely to record a GDP growth of 3.1% year-on-year. Economic growth creates business confidence and then employment.
Adcorp CEO Richard Pike said the first challenge was economic uncertainty.
"There is just too much uncertainty locally and globally, with what is happening in Europe, that sort of hangs over our head," he said.
"Closer to home, labour has become an unattractive option. Wage inflation has gone above productivity gain. We have had a lot of militant strike action . Labour has become expensive. Regulations price people out of the market and make it difficult to dismiss people for poor performance. These things mitigate against employment."
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