Financial Mail reports that the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) is alarmed by the prolonged downward trajectory in employment in hotels, restaurants and business services, which are all sectors that are highly employment intensive.
Last week, the BER’s fourth-quarter survey of "other services" showed that the percentage of hotels and restaurants which reported cutting jobs grew in each quarter last year despite the progressive opening up of the economy. A net 14% reported a decline in employment in Q1, 60% in Q2, 67% in Q3 and 83% in Q4. In business services, employment declined 41% in Q1, rising to 73% in Q4. "From the perspective of preserving livelihoods, the prolonged reduction in employment at hotels, restaurants and business services — and the fact that the downward trajectory persisted in the final quarter — is most worrisome," said BER’s George Kershoff. The sectors’ decline supports the view that SA’s GDP growth rate subsided in the fourth quarter. Intellidex’s Peter Attard Montalto warned that 2021 was shaping up to be a year where SA would have to focus far more on levels of output and employment as the realisation dawned that the recovery was not reabsorbing lost labour or catching up on lost output, and that the pie was smaller and inequality higher.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Claire Bisseker at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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