BL Premium reports that SA’s latest unemployment data, which shows the country’s joblessness crisis worsening to a new record, also reveals the costs of the violence and looting that engulfed KwaZulu-Natal and parts of Gauteng in July.
The provinces accounted for more than half of the 660,000 jobs lost during the third quarter of 2021. The national unemployment rate climbed to 34.9% from what had already been a record 34.4% in the previous three months. Unemployment as measured by the expanded definition, which includes those who have stopped searching for work, rose to 46.6%. During the third quarter, the largest employment decrease was recorded in Gauteng, which was down 200,092 to 4.4-million employed people. KwaZulu-Natal recorded a decrease of 123,000 to 2.2-million. Characterised as a failed insurrection by President Cyril Ramaphosa, the violence saw shops, warehouses, factories, pharmacies and malls stripped bare and set alight. Many business people indicated that they would not be able to rebuild, meaning a significant portion of the jobs lost will not return in an economy that was already battered by the Covid-19 outbreak and lockdowns — which led to a 6.4% drop in GDP during 2020. Economists at Nedbank said the unemployment numbers indicated the economic recovery so far had not supported job creation, with all industries well below pre-pandemic levels. “The outlook for the job market remains poor,” they wrote.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
- Read too, South Africa bleeds jobs as riots take toll on commercial hubs, at Moneyweb
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page