This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
The Citizen writes that the high youth unemployment figures for January clearly show how bad unemployment in SA is, with 61% of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 and 39.9% of people between the ages of 25 and 34 years unemployed.
Economic research group, Oxford Economics Africa, observed: “The latest jobs report offers some good news but does not detract from South Africa’s sky-high unemployment rate, which has consistently remained above 20% for more than two decades now. What’s more, concerns about weak economic growth over the medium-term risk the unemployment rate becoming entrenched at current lofty levels.” According to Statistics SA’s Q4 2022 Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), released on Tuesday, the number of unemployed people stood at roughly 7.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, a slight increase from the third quarter. The number of employed individuals increased by 1.1% compared to the third quarter, thanks to an uptick in formal sector employment. Meanwhile, the labour force participation and absorption rates increased marginally in the fourth quarter and although South Africa’s unemployment rate dipped by 0.2 percentage points, it remained concerningly high at 32.7%.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ina Opperman at The Citizen (subscriber access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page