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TOUGH TIMES: Sad story of joblessness. Labourers wait for customers outside a building materials warehouse in Fourways, Johannesburg. Photo: ALON SKUY

 Employment rate rises yearly - study 

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The Quarterly Labour Force Survey, compiled by Statistics SA and released yesterday, shows that the employment rate dropped by 4.4% to 197000 in the period between July and September compared to the second quarter. The economy, however, created 198000 jobs. This means the unemployment rate increased by 0.6% to 25.5% between July and September from a second quarter's 24.9%.

The largest driver of the job creation was the informal sector.

According to the survey, employment in the informal sector increased by 112000 jobs, while formal sector jobs increased by 92000 and agriculture by 23000 in the third quarter."

The third quarter rise in employment translates into an increase of 670000 in the number of employed persons since the third quarter of 2010, although this level is still 382000 below the peak in employment of14million reached in the third quarter of 2008.

The survey also showed that the country's year-on-year employment rate increased by 2.5% to 327000 and that it paid to be more educated.

Economist Laura Campbell said the figures were encouraging.

"Recent trends in the survey have suggested that employment creation has been taking place more recently, proportionately more in skill intensive categories," she said.

"For instance, in the third quarter, the financial and business services sector created more jobs."

The sector contributed towards 37% of the increase in employment.

"This illustrates the manner in which the level of skills needs to improve within the domestic economy in order to render a greater percentage of the population more employable," said Campbell.

The survey, indeed, showed that the job market favoured the more educated, with 61% of the unemployed having no matric, while only 5.9% of the unemployed have tertiary qualifications meanwhile more women lost their jobs.

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Mon May 20 19:52:07 SAST 2013 ::

Nov 2, 2012

DjEp

If Zuma could stop Nkandlavile and allow for that money to be used to create long term jobs! What is also sad is most of the people are youth and are without jobs.
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