Unemployment levels drop but better education needed

Pali Lehohla says that more must be done to improve education and training levels in South Africa. Image: Stats SA

Statistics SA (Stats SA) released the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) on Tuesday (11 February).

The expanded unemployment rate‚ which takes into account people that have stopped looking for work‚ fell to 34% from 34.9%.

Nedbank economists said the latest unemployment data suggested that the weak economy was still struggling to appreciably reduce unemployment.

"The unemployment rate is unlikely to be reduced significantly in the short-term given weak domestic demand‚ rising input costs‚ labour disputes‚ significant infrastructure constraints and other regulatory issues in some of the key sectors‚" they said in a research note.

On a year-on-year basis‚ employment increased by 653‚000 - the largest year-on-year gain since the recession.

Stanlib chief economist Kevin Lings said this figure was "impressive" and that SA had gained a total of 1.5m jobs since the low point in 2010.

Employment at record levels

"This means that employment in South Africa is now at another record high‚ easily surpassing the pre-financial market crisis level‚" Lings said.

Figures showed that employment increased by 141‚000‚ mainly supported by the informal sector while the number of unemployed people fell by 50,000. The informal sector added 123,000 of the 141,000 jobs while the formal sector created 64‚000 of the jobs.

Stats SA warned‚ however‚ that most of the job gains in the informal sector were short-term contracts‚ suggesting that some of these jobs were temporary.

Most of the jobs were created in community and social services‚ construction‚ and trade while agriculture‚ finance and other business services‚ and private households shed jobs.

Employment increased each quarter‚ reaching 15.2m in the fourth quarter.

Thousands of youths remain unemployed despite extensive job creation efforts last year. Image: The LED Network

Stats SA said‚ however‚ that despite the rise in employment in the fourth quarter‚ the proportion of working-age South Africans with jobs‚ at 43.3%‚ was still below the pre-recession peak of 46.2% in the fourth quarter of 2008‚ with Stats SA officials referring to this as a concern.

Education, skills, training needed

Stats SA figures showed 30.2%‚ or 3.1m people‚ between the ages of 15 and 24 were not in education‚ employment or training.

Lehohla said that education and work experience were important and that young people with a tertiary qualification had much better prospects of finding a job.

The government approved a tax incentive scheme for companies that employ and give work experience to the youth. The incentive scheme‚ intended for a three-year period‚ started in January this year.

Just more than 15m people aged between 15 and 64 were either not looking for work or not available to work‚ with the four main reasons being discouragement from looking for work‚ being a student‚ looking after a family and being sick or disabled.

Discouraged job-seekers declined by 97‚000‚ while the other group of not economically active people increased by 159,000‚ resulting in an increase of 63,000 in the not economically active group as a whole.

Stats SA has updated the QLFS results (2008-13) to reflect the new population benchmarks from Census 2011 but it said the revised estimates had little effect on the unemployment rate.