Their research revisits the old debate about excluding those who have given up looking for work from the definition of the unemployed. If these "discouraged workers" are included, SA's unemployment rate would rocket from 25.2% to 36.7%.
In SA's official labour force statistics, which are in line with international practice, a person is regarded as "discouraged" and therefore not counted as unemployed if he or she did not actively search for work within four weeks of the survey being conducted.
This gives an artificially low figure of the unemployment rate, say researchers Neil Lloyd at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit and Murray Leibbrandt, National Research Foundation chair in poverty and inequality research.
They argue that judging from the level of dissatisfaction with their lives, discouraged workers have stopped looking for work since "they have lost all hope".
Discouraged workers had shown the lowest level of contentment, according to their research. On a scale of one to 10, ranging from "very dissatisfied" to "very satisfied", respondents had been asked: "How do you feel about your life as a whole right now?"
Discouraged workers scored an average of five in the first data period of 2008 and 3.9 in the second, between 2010/11. By contrast, those not active in the workforce because they were not of working age or were studying, were much happier, with satisfaction levels of 5.5 and 4.7. Happiest of all were the employed, at 5.3 and 5.5.
"The non-searching unemployed are equally, or even more 'unhappy' than the searching unemployed. Indeed, their life satisfaction has hit rock bottom. On these considerations, there are no grounds for excluding the non-searching unemployed from measures of unemployment."
The paper says the findings are "sobering" and it cautions those who blithely speculate that South African unemployment levels cannot be as bad as it is made out to be.
Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge
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