Around 18 000 jobs or 1.8% of the total were shed by the transport sector between the second and third quarter of 2018, according to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey by Stats SA.
However, the good news is that the combined formal and informal sectors of the industry are supporting 8 000 more jobs than they were this time last year – an increase of 0.8% in the head count, to 996 000. In the third quarter Gauteng was by far the biggest employer in the sector – at 389 000 jobs, followed by KwaZulu-Natal (176 000) and the Western Cape (160 000).
Employment of women by the transport industry rose by 6.7%, while that of men dropped by 0.6% year-on year. This overall increase is in the face of a net decline of 125 000 jobs in the formal sector between the third quarters of 2017 and 2018. The biggest losses were in finance and other business services (69 000), mining (40 000) and manufacturing (35 000) industries.
Employment gains were recorded in seven of the nine provinces in Q3: 2018 The largest employment increases were recorded in Limpopo (41 000), Gauteng (22 000) and Mpumalanga (20 000).
Free State (14 000) and Eastern Cape (13 000) recorded employment losses.
