Mail & Guardian reports that one in every two jobs lost as a result of Covid-19’s economic onslaught was once held by an informal worker.

This was revealed by research that analysed the effect of the pandemic on SA’s labour market as part of a Wits School of Governance project on the future of the country’s economy. The research also found that the lockdown decreased the probability of employment for nonessential workers not permitted to work under the stricter lockdown by 8%. And self-employed workers — most of whom are in the informal sector — experienced a nearly three times greater negative effect on employment than the overall average effect. The report noted that SA’s lockdown was always expected to lead to substantial short- and long-term economic costs. Statistics SA’s quarterly labour force survey found that in the first months of the hard lockdown, 2.2-million people lost their jobs. The Covid-19-induced jobs loss essentially erased the last decade of employment growth, the report pointed out. According to the report, job losses in the informal sector and among domestic workers together represented about half of total employment losses. These sectors accounted for just under 28% of pre-pandemic employment, showing that they were affected disproportionately. The government came under fire because, although it instituted pay protection measures for formal sector workers through the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), it did not extend them to informal sector workers. And although domestic workers were covered by the scheme, many of them initially missed out because their employers had not registered them with the UIF. The analysis also showed that most of those who lost jobs (95.2%) were not union members and that trade union memberships grew over the period, increasing from 3.95-million to 4.2-million.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Sarah Smit at Mail & Guardian

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