• South Africa’s employment rate has seen increases for the last seven yearly quarters since Q4 2021.
• The largest contributor to the latest quarter’s increase in people with jobs is the construction industry.
• People without matric certificates still make up the majority of the unemployed.

Statistics South Africa has released its latest labour force survey, covering the second quarter of 2023. It found that across South Africa, the number of individuals who are employed increased by 154 000 to 16.3 million, compared to the first quarter of the year.

The number of unemployed persons, or at least surveyed people who no longer register as “unemployed” decreased by 11 000 to 7.9 million. This means that combined, the South African labour force added a new 143 000 people in the last quarter two.

In fact, employment has seen small increases for the last seven quarters, from the last quarter of 2021 onwards. The last decrease in the employment rate was experienced in Q3 2021.

The number of people with jobs increased in six of the ten industries that the employment survey covers. Construction saw the largest boost recorded, with 104 000 individuals joining the industry year over year.

This was followed by trade (92 000), and community and social services (63 000). Four industries saw decreases in the employment rate, including manufacturing, finance, transport and utilities. Manufacturing bled nearly 100 000 jobs in the last year.

Manufacturing has been waylaid in recent years by the negative effects of loadshedding, slow domestic and global demand, and lower commodity prices. Despite this, the sector has seen some signs of a slight recovery in recent months with output increasing by nearly 3 percent in May.

In terms of the education level of employment people vs. unemployment people, Stats SA found that as many as half of the 7.9 million currently unemployed people in South Africa did not have matric, followed by those with matric at 40.2 percent.

Only 6.6 of the unemployed had tertiary qualifications, while 2.4 percent of those without jobs are graduates. While this may make it seem that education level corresponds with employment, it is also important to note that there are far fewer people with tertiary education compared to those with matrics, and those without, which skews the results.

However, it does show that matrics are still struggling to find jobs with the difference between those with matric and without who are employed only 10 percent, despite the social pressures of attaining a matric certificate.

[Image – Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash]