Johannesburg - The Congress of South African
Trade Unions said on Thursday it is "absolutely shocked" at the revelation
in the Stats SA Labour Force Survey that the country's official unemployment
rate increased to 24.5% of the labour force in the third quarter of 2009,
from 23.6% in the second quarter, and that the number of employed people
fell by 484 000 to 12.885 million.
"This means that a staggering 4.192 million South Africans are now
without work. And that rises to 4.702 million if you add the 510 000 who
have given up even looking for a job or have opted out of the labour force
completely," the federation said in a statement.
The more realistic expanded definition of unemployment, which includes
those people that have given up looking for work, climbed from 32.5% to
34.4% in the same period.
"Stats SA say that 'these patterns' show the continued deterioration
in the South African labour market ... job losses were widespread, affecting
most industries'. But of particular concern is that the key manufacturing
sector shed 150 000 jobs, equivalent to 8% of total jobs for the industry.
Wholesale and retail trade lost 110 000 jobs.
"These statistics prove that we remain in the midst of a national
unemployment emergency. But it is more than that. They reveal a fundamental
structural problem in the economy, an economy which is being
deindustrialised," Cosatu said.
It added that the underlying cause is the "mistaken policies between
1996 and 2004, of cutting tariffs and privatising basic services, combined
with a failure to restructure the economy, and in particular the totally
inappropriate monetary policies pursued in those years, centred on the
pursuit of the misguided belief in inflation-targeting".
"All our warnings about these false policies were ignored, and now the
problems they have caused coincide with a world economic crisis and the
chickens are coming home to roost.
"This is reflected in the wave of community service-delivery protests,
which are about specific local grievances but are also related to the
structural problems in the economy.
"We have a new government committed to reverse these policies and
implement a strategy to grow the economy and create decent work. But when
they are still finding their feet they have got caught up in this massive
crisis.
"It is more urgent than ever that they adopt a bold new approach,
speedily address these structural problems and implement the ambitious job-
saving and job-creating measures spelled out in the ANC manifesto, the State
of the Nation address and the Framework Agreement on South Africa's response
to the world economic crisis.
"Immediate measures must be taken to protect our industries and
prevent an even worse descent into total economic meltdown. Government,
business and labour - and the SA Reserve Bank must focus all their
policies on saving jobs, creating new jobs, ending the jobloss bloodbath as
rapidly as possible and getting the South African economy moving forward
again," Cosatu said.
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