Engineering News reports that employment in SA’s non-agricultural formal sector grew by 22,000 in the first quarter of 2019, Statistics SA announced on Tuesday in its latest Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES) bulletin.  

This followed an increase of 87,000 jobs in the last quarter of 2018.  Stats SA reported that employment increased from 10,152,000 in December 2018 to 10,174,000 in March 2019.  This was largely due to increases in community services (19,000); mining and quarrying (6,000); manufacturing (5,000); and business services (5,000).  There were decreases in trade (-8,000); transport industry (-3,000); electricity industry (-1,000); and construction (-1,000).  Total earnings paid to employees amounted to R688-billion in March 2019, down from R728-billion in December 2018, which represented a quarterly decrease of R40-billion or -5.6%.  The QES bulletin is separate from Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey.  While the labour force survey gives SA's official unemployment rate, the QES gives a snapshot of total non-agricultural formal sector employment.

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