Over 52% of SA’s youth jobless

Work seekers between 15 and 24 years are income-shy, despite president’s Youth Employment Service

YOUTH unemployment in South Africa surged to 52.4 percent in the first quarter from 51.1 percent recorded in the fourth quarter of last year.

Data from the Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) Quarterly Labour Force Survey yesterday showed that job seekers between 15 and 24 years remained on the receiving end of the unemployment scourge despite President Cyril Ramaphosa launching the Youth Employment Service in March to address the problem.

Stats SA said unemployment maintained the 15-year high, remaining unchanged at 26.7 percent despite a slight increase in employment with the formal sector adding 111 000 jobs and the informal sector contributing 93 000.

The quarterly employment increase of 206 000 jobs in the first quarter was driven by sectors including mining, which added 1 849 000 jobs, construction 1 431 000 jobs and manufacturing with 1 849 000 jobs

NKC African Economics said official unemployment remained very high by historical standards.

NKC analyst Gerrit van Rooyen said subdued employment and the large jump in discouraged work seekers showed that economic growth was sluggish during the quarter.

“Without the necessary policy intervention to address growth, youth unemployment and education issues, high unemployment is likely to persist into the foreseeable future,” Van Rooyen said.

Unemployment increased from 9 216 million in the previous quarter to 9 481 million during the current one, while the number of employed people increased 1.3 percent quarter-on-quarter and 1 percent year-on-year to 16.4 million individuals.

Joblessness The Eastern Cape recorded the highest joblessness at 46 percent, followed by Mpumalanga at 42.5 percent and the platinum-rich North West at 41.8 percent.

Discouraged job seekers decreased from the previous quarter’s 15 474 to 15 320 in the first quarter of 2018.

FNB senior economic analyst Jason Muscat said the figures were broadly in line with expectations.

“We continue to remain downbeat on the prospects for meaningful declines in the unemployment rate,” Muscat said. “Despite the forecast for economic growth of approximately 2 percent this year, GDP will have to grow at more than double this rate in order to appreciably absorb new entrants and those that have grown despondent about finding employment.”

The labour intensive agriculture sector saw a 3 percent year-on-year decline in agricultural employment in the first quarter of 2018 to 847 000 jobs.

SA Institute of Race Relations chief economist Ian Cruickshanks said the statistics showed that attempts to revive the economy were not achieving success.

“The long-term solution to unemployment should be about making people understand, especially school leavers, that in two years’ time they could be bricklayers, plumbers and electricians, in order to manually grow the economy,” he said.

Agricultural economist and head of agribusiness research at Agbiz, Wandile Sihlobo, said: “The reduction in employment might be temporary, but it is worth highlighting that South Africa is still far behind its target of creating a million agricultural jobs by 2030 as envisaged in the National Development Plan.”