Daily Dispatch

Jobs outlook is so depressing

Yet again the recent unemployment figures have painted a rather depressing picture of our country, especially our province.

The overall unemployment rate remains unchanged at 27.7% nationally, but in the Eastern Cape our unemployment rate has increased to 35.5%. This is a 1.1 percentage point increase from the 34.4 % recorded in the last quarter. The latest figures are for the period June to September 2017.

The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) delivered by outgoing Statistician General Pali Lehohla basically showed that as the Eastern Cape we continue to bleed jobs while there are offshoots of progress elsewhere. “By province, the official unemployment rate declined in five of the nine provinces. The largest decline in the unemployment rate was recorded in Free State (down by 2.6 percentage points), Limpopo (down by 1.7 percentage points ) and Mpumalanga (down by 1.6 percentage points). In comparison to the same period last year, the unemployment rate increased by 0.6 of a percentage point. During this period, the largest increase in official unemployment rate was recorded in Eastern Cape (7.3 percentage points),” said the report.

The latest survey follows on the heels of Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s Mid-term Budget Policy Statement which also painted a rather gloomy image of the road ahead.

While it was a frank assessment on the state of our economy – the growing national debt, economic growth revised downwards from 1.3% to 0.7% for 2017 while tax revenue fell by R50-billion – it was short on solutions. Essentially Gigaba told us to prepare for a rough ride without him telling us how we should cushion the blows.

As things stand we are unlikely to get out of this rather sticky situation anytime soon. The worrying trend from Lehohla’s report is that manufacturing and agriculture – usually high absorbers of the labour force – lost a combined 75 000 jobs over the past three months. Construction also lost another 30 000 jobs during the same period. This means that there are less infrastructure projects which are a necessary stimulant to a stagnant economy. Looking at the figures closely reveals that in Buffalo City Metro there were 252 000 people employed by June 2017. But since then the number dropped to 245 000, marking a 7 000 drop.

During the same period there were 103 000 unemployed people but now another 23 000 has joined the ranks of the unemployed. This saw the unemployment rate in BCM going up from 29.1% last quarter to 34.1%. What is even more worrying though is the rise of youth unemployment.

Young people account for 38.6% of those who are unemployed. There are 10.3 million young South Africans between the ages 1524 years and about 30% of them are not in employment, education or training. A restless and idle youth is a recipe for disaster. Erstwhile Cosatu boss Zwelinzima Vavi once warned that youth unemployment was a “ticking time bomb”. Solutions are needed before it explodes. The government must provide proper plans of what it plans to do to lift our economy from the doldrums. As business and civil society let us also play our part in seeking solutions.