Engineering News writes that second-quarter employment data recently released by Statistics SA reflected a total loss of 15,553 jobs since the beginning of 2015.  

This downward trend is getting cumulatively worse, with 3,550 and 6, 902 job losses being recorded in the third and fourth quarter of 2015 respectively, and 9,012 job losses in the first quarter of this year.  Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa) chief economist Henk Lagenhoven asserted on Wednesday that the increasing rate of job losses was the best reflection of the declining metals and engineering sector, which employed 381,330 people in SA.  “A study of the latest purchasing managers’ index (PMI) gives little consolation that conditions will improve shortly,” he lamented.  “The metals and engineering sector is in a critical condition and it seems as if the patient will suffer a serious setback over the next six months before improvements can be expected,” Langenhoven predicted.

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