JOBS GROW IN NUMBER AND QUALITY

Well, whilst this is certainly good news, it is still a problem that these poor people who cannot find work, still have to endure on a daily basis. If all SMME's hired at least one person (even if it is just a domestic worker or gardner), this would certainly assist the situation.

Labour force survey shows modest decline in joblessness and a record 12.8m people employed


Jobs grow in number and quality
March 30, 2007
By Ethel Hazelhurst

Johannesburg - More South Africans are employed than ever before and job creation is being driven by the formal sector rather than by street traders and other informal sector occupations. This is some of the good news in the labour force survey, released yesterday by Statistics SA. It showed a modest decline in unemployment between September 2005 and last year, as well as a number of encouraging longer-term trends.

The semiannual household survey showed that the number of jobs rose 4 percent to 12.8 million in the period. Of this number, 8.4 million were in the formal sector, excluding agriculture; about 1 million in agriculture; 2.4 million in the informal sector; and 886 000 domestic workers. Mike Schussler, an economist at T-Sec, said the total was the highest in history. "The strongest growth was in the formal sector, which is encouraging because formally employed workers are more likely to have a constant salary and a pension or provident fund."

The non-farm formal sector had created more than 1.3 million jobs over the past five years, "while the number of jobs in the informal sector is more or less back at the level prevailing in March 2001", said Standard Bank's economic unit. "Relative to other developing economies, and more particularly Africa, this development is nothing short of remarkable as, according to the World Bank, about 90 percent of employment in developing markets occurs in the informal sector."

The improvement comes as job creation tops the economic and social agenda. The government's accelerated and shared growth initiative aims to halve unemployment by 2014. But jobs growth has lagged growth in gross domestic product, which has accelerated to about 5 percent. An increase in employment does not necessarily mean a reduction in unemployment, because the number of people in the labour force (economically active people) varies. However, unemployment declined between September 2005 and last year, from 4.5 million people to 4.4 million - or from 26.7 percent to 25.5 percent of the labour force.


The decline was spread across the four population groups, Stats SA said. Among black Africans unemployment fell from 31.5 percent to 30.5 percent and among white people from 5.1 percent to 4.5 percent. The sharpest improvement was among Indians, from 15.8 percent to 9.6 percent, and coloured people, from 22.4 percent to 19.4 percent. The drop in unemployment was accompanied by a fall in the number of discouraged work seekers, who are classified among economically inactive people for calculations of official unemployment. These fell from 3.9 million in September 2004 to 3.3 million in September 2005 and 3.2 million in September last year.

The latest survey shows that, of South Africa's 30 million adults, 17.2 million are economically active and 12.8 million are not. The number of economically active people has continued to expand, from 16.8 million in September 2005 to 17.2 million a year later. And since there was a less rapid expansion in the working age population, the labour force participation rate rose from 56.5 percent in to 57.3 percent. The survey reported steady improvement in job growth since 2001. "Employment growth has been particularly strong in the two years to September 2006, when over 1 million additional people were employed. As a result, 1.6 million jobs - more than 14 percent - were added between September 2001 and September 2006.

"Since 2001, 588 000 elementary (labourer) jobs have been created, 392 000 craftsman's jobs, 209 000 in sales and service, 209 000 at managerial level, 155 000 clerk's jobs and 115 000 professional posts. The survey shows that the largest number of people are employed in wholesale and retail trade, with 3.1 million, while 2.3 million are employed in community and social services, 1.7 million in manufacturing, 1.3 million in finance and 1 million in agriculture.Stats SA says the survey is based on information collected in face-to-face interviews with about 67 000 adults, aged 15 to 65, living in more than 30 000 households.