The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has blamed South Africa’s failure to attract investment, on which economic growth and job creation depend, for the dismal jobs figures released by Stats SA yesterday.
Compounded by the lockdown restrictions of recent months, this has left South Africa facing a humanitarian crisis of steadily rising unemployment, according to the organisation.
Results of the 3rd Quarter Labour Force Survey (QLFS) published by Stats SA yesterday pegged the country’s unemployment rate at 30.8% (43.1% on the expanded definition, which includes discouraged work seekers who have given up looking for jobs). This is the highest recorded since 2008.
Put differently, the figures show that only 51.5% of South Africans between 35 and 64 have a job, and only 57% between 15 and 34 are employed or are in education or training.
Only two in every five South Africans between 25 and 34 are employed.
The lockdown imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19 earlier this year delivered a body blow to the economy at a cost of millions of jobs – but, according to data in a 2020 South Africa Survey published by the IRR, joblessness has been rising steadily since 2009.
In that year, 1.7 million people were classified as ‘new entrants’ (people who were unemployed during the reference period and had never worked before). A decade later, there were 2.5 million in this category.
In 2009, the number of people who were declared unemployed due to losing a job (by being laid off, or because a business was sold or closed down) was 1.5 million. In 2019, this figure had grown to more than 2 million.
Overall, joblessness has risen from 4.3 million in the 3rd Quarter of 2009 to 6.5 million.
Government moves to introduce expropriation without compensation, the IRR believes, has undermined investor confidence.
Failure to attract FDI blamed for dismal jobs figures
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