South Africa's jobless numbers
"This economy is not geared to creating jobs because the environment is too hostile for small business" - economist
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South Africa’s official jobless rate eased to 23,9% of the labour force in the fourth quarter of 2011, from 25,0% in the third quarter, a survey showed on Tuesday.
In its latest quarterly Labour Force Survey, Statistics South Africa said the total number of unemployed people stood at 4,244 million in the three months to December from 4,442 million in the third quarter.
The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, decreased by 0,6 percentage points to 35,4%.
ANALYST COMMENTS:
TEBOGO MOSEPELE, ECONOMIST, STANDARD BANK
“The employment data today does not change our interest rate view. Standard Bank reiterates that the SARB’s MPC will hold interest rates unchanged until mid-2013. Thereafter, gradual monetary policy normalization is expected.
“While the improvement in the unemployment rate can be viewed as rand positive, we expect the data to have limited impact on the rand’s direction. Global sentiment, particularly from the Eurozone debt crisis should continue to have the greatest bearing on the rand’s movement over the short-medium-term.”
CHRIS HART, CHIEF ECONOMIST, INVESTMENT SOLUTIONS
“The South African economy is in a phase where you are actually starting to claw back some of the job losses that occurred in the wake of the global financial crisis.
“However, job creation is not happening in abundance or at the rate that could ever hope to materially dent unemployment.
“We are tinkering in decimal points whereas the substance of unemployment is not really being resolved at all. This economy is not geared to creating jobs because the environment is too hostile for small business.
“Programmes (announced by President Zuma last year) are really mere gestures. They could never ever be a solution to our jobs crisis.
“You’d need to improve savings in households and then cut the regulatory requirements for small businesses, maybe of turnover of two billion rand. There’s no one regulation I would single out, there’s layers and layers and complexity and costs of the myriad of regulatory requirements.”
BACKGROUND:
— The government sees unemployment as one of the major challenges for South Africa’s economy after a million jobs were lost during a recession in 2009 and have not been recovered.
— Out of nearly 50 million people in South Africa, only about 13,1 million are employed, with only 40% of people of working age in a job.
— The government is proposing changes to labour law that are intended to increase job security for temporary workers but economists expect the shake-up will worsen unemployment as it partly ramps up costs for employers.
— Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has said the economy needs to grow by 7% a year on a sustained basis to make a dent on unemployment, more than double the current rate of 3,1% seen for 2011.
Sinudeity
There are thousands of open positions in the IT industry. I get at least 1 job offer a week. South Africa need more programmers. We need to become the IT powerhouse of Africa.Report Abuse
RobinH
"This economy is not geared to creating jobs because the environment is too hostile for small business" Nail on the head!!! Big business is THE ENEMY.Report Abuse
MommaC
Reasons for the unemployment:1. Cosatu
2. Strikes
3. Cosatu
4. Eishkom
5. Infrastructure
6. Red tape
7. Cosatu
8. Eishkom
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JayE
Sinudeity:There are thousands of open positions in the IT industry. I get at least 1 job offer a week. South Africa need more programmers. We need to become the IT powerhouse of Africa.
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Very much agree with that. I believe that SA has the ability to power the African technological rennaisance.
However, as an IT professional working in a corperate environment, I really do sometimes question the the education standards of our universities. I get graduates walking in and they are clueless...? They can't think...? Added to this, when they get into the job market, I often find that whhat they know is so outdated as to be useless.
However, there are definitely jobs in IT in South Africa...especially in the Niche IT areas that don't get taught at tertiary institutions. I would encourage young people to actually seriously conssider jobs in IT. You will be markatable and employable...ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A BEE CANDIDATE.
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TjoVtjo
@ RobinHthink you have half the truth on this one. Government should be encouraging the growth of small business as in any economy they tend to employ a lot more people than say Anglo on their own. WE need to create our own jobs on our own, and Government should provide measures to support this.
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mosheza
I agree with some of the above, on the causes of high rate of unemployment in South Africans, which are as follows:1. high number of illegal and legal immigrants in the conutry, South Africans are forced to compete with these people for the scarce jobs. meaning that there is too much supply of labour force.
2. mismatch between the skills and the labour market. we have very few skilled people in Science, IT, Finance and Economics.
3. corruption in government
4. polotical and economic instability within the region or continent, coz foreign investors view AFRICA as one country, that means, whatever happens in Zim they think that it might also happen in SA.
5. Poor investment in hard Infrastructure
6. access to and lack of information about the foreign market, our SMME's only thinks about the local market
7. lack of investment attraction strategies and policies
8. difficult labour laws, e.g, it is easy to hire but not easy to fire incompentent employee.
9. concentration of development in selected areas, there is need to invest in rural areas.
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Ndele01
I'm not convinced that everyone sitting at home wants to work ..... how many of them have tried to start a business by working 18 hours a day - like many of the previous generation did ?The government also does not have the skills to start mega projects and controlling the costs - at least the previous government started Sasol, Yscor, Escom, Kumba, Transnet, etc. etc.(the new government is just messing it up)
I'm also not convinced that some of the working people (specially in government) want to work either.
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mambaaai
Simple:Unfortunately countries we compete in the international arena do not have minimum wages laws...so companies and factories can start up easily. The people can get experience and use that experience to move on get a better job making way for more juniors to join. Minimum wages cause factories and the like to employ machines and robots...that dont have unions.
More people at work create exports and more proper work, and exports for the country and are not in the streets needing police to look after them. this makes the country safer as people are not turning to crime to survive. Subsidise factories (via tax breaks) with money that would have been needed for more police...police do not create more exports and more work...
take minimum wages away...people get work experience and move, move up in a differenet company.and so the whole country job market grows
due to competing countries and trading partners we have lost lots of jobs in our textile industry, motor industry...unfrtunately we operate in a competitive world
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