Concern over high vacancy rate in face of joblessness

The Public Service Commission (PSC) says it is concerned about the 10% vacancy rate in various provincial and national departments while there is high youth unemployment in the country.

On Wednesday, the PSC released its bulletin that showed that the public service remains a bigger employer in the country. As at the end of June, the public service had over 1.3million vacant posts.

Of this, 1.17million were filled. This means there were over 125000 vacant positions.

The provinces with highest vacancy rates were Eastern Cape and North West at 22% and 19% respectively. This was way higher than the required 10%. The most significant decline in vacancy rate was in the Free State where it dropped from 11.8% to 6.9%.

The national departments with the highest vacancy rates were Sport and Recreation (39.1%), Transport (28.1%), Rural Development and Land Reform (24.8%), and Social Development (22.4%).

The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform had 650 vacancies at the beginning of the quarter under review and had an additional 998 vacancies at the end of the same quarter.

PSC commissioner Michael Seloane was unimpressed even with those departments who are able to meet the 10% vacancy rate.

"Because of unemployment, it does not augur well that vacancies are not filled while people are unemployed. We want to make sure that at all times that vacancy rate goes far below 10%," he said.

"The question that we have observed is that vacancies are filled mostly by people moving from one department to another department. That doesn't change the public service. It is a minus one, plus one. It is a zero sum game. We are looking forward to a situation where new employees will come in order to deal with the issue of unemployment."