While unions are expected to go on a national march today to highlight the plight of the high cost of living and job losses, former statistician-general Dr Pali Lehohla says the government hasn't shown any will to deal with high youth unemployment.
Lehohla was commenting on the sidelines of Stats SA's Quarterly Labour Force Survey covering the second quarter of the year, which showed a slight 0.6% drop of unemployment. Unemployment decreased to 33.9% in the second quarter from 34.5% recorded in the first quarter.
According to Stats SA, this equates to 648,000 new jobs created during this period with the biggest job gains recorded in community and social services (276,000), trade (169,000), finance (128,000) and construction (104,000).
Despite this positive news, unemployment of youth (aged 15 to 34) increased by 2% (or 92,000) to 4.8-million from the first quarter.
Lehohla said this was indicative of a government that has failed.
“There are fewer young people employed today compared to 2008. When you look at this you realise the situation is deteriorating so rapidly. A young person today is more desperate. From 2001-2008 there was an increase in the employment of young people with two million less employed compared to 2008.
“This changed around 2018 and at the very least government should have kept the figures the same instead of the drop.
“Unfortunately government has that momentary attention span. They bark at the moon and that’s what they do every year. All the policies discussed are not worth the paper they are written on and the policies they are pursuing won’t address the issues we’re facing,” he said.
Trade unions plan to shut down the country today to highlight the issue of unemployment and also to demand an increase of the R350 grant for the unemployed to R1,500.
Head of business management at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape, Prof Willie Chinyamurindi, said the increase in employment meant nothing for a young person in Mdantsane township.
“For the young person in KwaNobuhle and Mdantsane, this means nothing. We need to address their situation substantially and not this minimal increase. The minimal decline is immaterial to the greater challenge which is unemployment. It’s more or less the same of what happened before. We need to find ways of growing the economy.
“We need to find ways to resolve the country’s electricity crisis and President [Cyril] Ramaphosa has led some positive discussions around renewable energy where, if they work, more sustainable jobs can be created,” said Chimanyamurindi.
Economist Dr Lumkile Mondi from the Wits School of Business said the figures represented some kind of improvement, however, this did not mean that going forward the country's job prospects looked good because “the environment globally is not looking good due to difficulties we’re seeing in the north”.
“China is going through the most difficult drought, Europe is engaged in war with huge consequences for fuel and food shortages.
“The trade conditions, particularly for the manufacturing sector in SA, is going to be challenging given the global economy challenge,” he said.
The report also noted job losses in manufacturing (73,000) and transport (54,000). The total number of persons employed was 15.6-million in the second quarter of 2022.
Mondi said an opportunity remained for the country to focus on domestic investment and also look to the market reforms announced by Ramaphosa in the energy sector which he said was likely to create huge job opportunities in both solar and wind should those reforms be successfully implemented.
SA Mining Development Association chairperson Peter Temane said the reality of the jobs increase in mining was a direct result of the war in Europe and the shortage of gas.
“The industry has opened up but it's purely war-based and it's temporary. If Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries increase gas production then the boom will come to an end. There might have been a few jobs created but [you] can't quantify that figure,” Temane said.
nkosin@sowetan.co.za
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