South Africa creates more jobs, better jobs

South Africa's economy is creating more jobs, and jobs of higher quality, than ever before, according to Statistics SA's latest labour force survey.

The survey, released on Thursday, shows both a modest decline in unemployment between September 2005 and September 2006 as well as - as Business Report puts it - "a number of encouraging longer-term trends".

South Africa's official unemployment rate decreased to 25.5% in September 2006, down from 26.7% a year previously, with 500 000 new jobs being created.

And according to Stats SA's deputy director-general for population and social statistics, Kefiloe Masiteng, South Africa's formal sector (excluding agriculture) was the main driver, accounting for 1.4-million of the 1.6-million new jobs created in the five years to last September.

There was also a drop in the number of unemployed South Africans in the year to September, from 4.4-million to 4.3-million, as well as a decline of almost 100 000 in the number of discouraged work-seekers.

This saw the percentage of working-age South Africans with jobs improve from 41.1% to 42.7% - despite the increase in the number of people in the market for jobs.

South Africa's labour force grew from 16.7-million to 17.1-million in September 2006 as the working age population (15- to 65-year-olds) rose from 29.6-million to 30-million.

In all, the number of South Africans with jobs rose from 12.3-million to 12.8-million. Of this number, 8.4-million were in the formal sector (excluding agriculture), 2.4-million in the informal sector, about 1-million in agriculture and about 886 000 in domestic work.

T-Sec economist Mike Schussler told Business Report that the jobs total was the highest in the country's history.

"The strongest growth was in the formal sector, which is encouraging because formally employed workers are more likely to have a constant salary and a pension or provident fund," Schussler added.

Lagging economic growth
Nonetheless, Business Report states, the growth in jobs still laggs behind the country's economic growth rate.

South Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by a higher than expected 5.6% in the fourth quarter of 2006 as the economy notched up its 33rd quarter of uninterrupted growth since 1998 - the longest upswing in the country's history.

Real annual gross domestic product increased by 5% in 2006, following growth of 5.1% in 2005.

The government is busy fine-tuning and implementing a strategy - known as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (Asgi-SA) - to accelerate the country's growth rate and make sure that this growth is accompanied by job creation.

According to Masiteng, the country's trade industry (including the wholesale and retail sectors) accounted for 23.9% of the total increase in employment, the single largest contribution by any industry. The industry currently employs more than 3-million people.

The community and social services industry, which employs 2.3-million people, was the second largest contributor to total employment at 18.1%. Manufacturing, which employs 1.7-million workers, accounted for the third largest share at 13.6%.

Stats SA's labour force survey is based on the responses of approximately 67 000 working age adults in over 30 000 households across the country.

SouthAfrica.info reporter – 30 March 2007

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