Engineering News reports that economist Mike Schüssler noted during a webinar on Friday that the Covid-19 pandemic and the months of lockdown have had an immense negative impact on economies worldwide, with entire industries forced to close their doors, affecting millions of workers who either lost their income for weeks on end or lost their jobs altogether.  

Presenting trade union Uasa’s nineteenth SA Employment Report (SAER), he said the latest forecasts for this year’s global gross domestic product (GDP) showed the worst decline since the Great Depression in the late 1920s to early 1930s.  Schüssler said SA could expect one of the worst GDP per capita declines in the world.  The country’s per capita GDP for the second quarter would be similar to the level seen in 2000, he noted.  He added that the country would bounce back, but that a full recovery would take years – about six to nine years to reach 2019 levels and 11 to 14 years to reach 2014 levels.  Schüssler said he expected unemployment to increase owing to the Covid-19 crisis and lockdown, with an estimated 1.3-million to 3.3-million jobs lost on a permanent basis by March 2021.  He indicated that, with the addition of new entrants to the labour force next year, the best case for the country’s unemployment rate would be about 36.2%, while the worst case would be about 44.6%.  The most probable case, he noted, would be about 40.6% in March 2021.  However, he expects the unemployment rate to ease to 34% to 37% within 15 months after March 2021.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Engineering News

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