BL Premium reports that Stats SA’s latest quarterly employment statistics (QES) for July-September showed that formal-sector, non-farm jobs increased by 75,000 (0.8%) in the third quarter in comparison with the second quarter, when SA had been in a hard lockdown and those jobs declined 6.4%.  

But on an annual basis, the picture is far bleaker as formal-sector jobs decreased by 616,000, or 6%, in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2019.  The QES, released on Tuesday, measures employment in the formal, non-agriculture sector across 20,000 businesses, ranging from factories to local government entities.  The QES does not include informal, agricultural or domestic service workers.  On a year-on-year basis, all industries recorded declines in employment, with the most job losses reported in business services and trade.  Meanwhile, gross earnings fell 6.1% in the third quarter from the year before, due to declines in basic salary payments as well as reductions in bonus and overtime payments.  Absa economists Peter Worthington and Miyelani Maluleke commented that further retrenchments were far from over”.  They added that many firms were likely to reduce headcount further, particularly in vulnerable sectors such as tourism, where recovery was likely to be slow.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lynley Donnelly at BusinessLive (paywall access only)

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