The latest jobs report brings good news, but unemployment remains sky-high, consistently above 20% for more than two decades. In the second quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 33.9%, despite devastating floods in Durban – a key economic center – and more intense load shedding. According to the results of the Quarterly Labor Force Survey (QLFS) for the second quarter, released today by Statistics South Africa, the country added 648,000 jobs between the first and second quarters. The official unemployment rate was 33.9%, down by 0.6 pp, and the total number of…
The latest jobs report brings good news, but unemployment remains sky-high, consistently above 20% for more than two decades. In the second quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 33.9%, despite devastating floods in Durban – a key economic center – and more intense load shedding.
According to the results of the Quarterly Labor Force Survey (QLFS) for the second quarter, released today by Statistics South Africa, the country added 648,000 jobs between the first and second quarters. The official unemployment rate was 33.9%, down 0.6 pp, the total number of employed people was 15.6 million, and the number of unemployed people fell by 132,000 to 8 million compared to the previous quarter.
Oxford Economics Africa, an economic research group, said the latest unemployment numbers in the jobs report came in better than expected, as well as the average forecast of 35%, but the official unemployment rate remains above pre-pandemic levels and unsustainably high.
“An inflated civil service with significant pay rises has necessitated the diversion of resources away from investment in infrastructure and services in recent years. South Africa’s economy is experiencing rising unemployment and, given our economic forecasts, we expect the unemployment rate to remain at around 32% in the medium term.”
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Job cuts in manufacturing and transportation
According to the jobs report, manufacturing lost 73,000 jobs and transport lost 54,000, which Oxford Economics said was expected after severe flooding in KwaZulu-Natal hurt output at the start of the second quarter.
The unemployment rate according to the extended definition (“broad” unemployment rate) recently decreased by 1.4 pp to 44.1% compared to 44.4% in the same quarter last year. The labor force participation rate also increased from 56.9% in the first quarter to 58.6%, approaching the pre-pandemic level of around 60%.
Oxford Economics Africa notes that it is worrying that young people aged 15 to 24 (61.4%) and 25 to 34 (41.2%) recorded the highest unemployment rates in the second quarter, which, according to him, emphasizes the seriousness of the unemployment crisis in South Africa.
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It is still more difficult for women to find employment
Statistics SA also noted that women have a harder time finding work than men, more prominently in South Africa, which has a higher unemployment rate than the rest of the world.
“In 2022, 47.0% of South African women were recorded as economically inactive, meaning that almost half of working-age women in South Africa are not working, compared to 35.6% of their male counterparts, while the latest global employment rate force participation for women is about 47% compared to 72% for men.”
The productive potential of South African women in the labor market remains untapped and the proportion of women not in the labor force remains high.
Statistics SA says the labor market continues to favor men and shows no sign of real progress in improving prospects for women. From 2012 to 2022, the female unemployment rate remained higher than the national average.
“In 2012, the unemployment rate among women was 3.7 percentage points higher than the unemployment rate among men, in 2022 there was a gap of 2.9 percentage points. Currently, the unemployment rate among women is 35.5% against 32.6% among men.’
In South Africa, the labor force participation rate for women in the second quarter was 53.0% compared to 64.4% for men, a gap of 11.4 percentage points. Women also have the lowest absorption rate at 34.2% in the second quarter, lower than men at 43.4%.
The absorption rate represents the proportion of the working-age population that is actually used in the economy.
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Women are stuck in vulnerable undeclared employment
Furthermore, Statistics SA says that women who do find work are usually in vulnerable employment, which is often characterized by low pay, low productivity and difficult working conditions.
Only 5.8% of employed women hold managerial positions against 9.8% of employed men. Occupations with the highest proportion of female employment include basic work (22.3%), trade and services (18.5%), clerical (16.4%), domestic (11.9%) and technicians (11 .2%).
On the other hand, the largest proportion of males is found in entry-level occupations (24.4%), crafts and allied trades (17.2%), trades and services (15.0%) and machine tool and production operators (13.4% ).
According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2022, gender parity is not improving. In the context of the growing global crisis, women are suffering the most, exacerbating the existing negative outcomes for women in the labor market.
