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Cape Town – The increase of South Africa’s employment rate by 1.8% year-on-year (y/y) could have impacted the higher level of unemployment figures, statistician-general Pali Lehohla said on Tuesday.
South Africa’s employment rate increased y/y to 15.5 million people, which showed an annual increase of 405 000.
Lehohla was announcing Stats SA’s quarterly labour force survey as well as the quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) figures in Cape Town on Tuesday.
There was a 1.3% increase in y/y GDP in the first quarter of 2015, compared to the 4.1% y/y GDP increase in the fourth quarter of 2014.
READ:SA GDP increase slows to 1.3%
Lehohla told Fin24 that it was important to compare the number of discouraged South Africans versus the number of unemployed.
The results for the first quarter reflected a decrease in the not economically active population in favour of the economically active population.
“Depending on job prospects, unemployment may increase because people are hopeful and they can go and search for jobs,” he said. “People move out of discouragement to job-seeking behaviour.”
“Despite the number of people that were in the labour market, the number of people that are getting jobs is increasing relative to where it had declined in 2010,” he said.
AUDIO: Listen to the interview with Lehohla
Discouraged job-seekers were people who wanted to work and were available to work, but did not search for jobs because there were no jobs available in the area, they were unable to find jobs that matched their skills or simply lost hope in finding a job.
Of the 35.8 million people of working age (15 to 64-year old) in South Africa, there were 2 397 000 discouraged job-seekers.
Employment figures
“The largest increase [in employment] was in agriculture at 183 000 [new] jobs,” he said.
The quarter-to-quarter changes showed that employment increased by 0.4% or 140 000, with the largest increase coming from agriculture and private households.
Services, trade and finance accounted for 56.2% of the employed in the first quarter, while the Northern Cape recorded the highest official unemployment rate.
The formal sector accounted for the largest share of employment at 69.8%, while agriculture accounted for the lowest share (5.8%), according to Stats SA.
NDP goals cannot be achieved
“The numbers are growing, but very slowly to actually get to the NDP (National Development Plan) goals,” said Lehohla.
“At the pace at which things are, the NDP cannot be achieved.
“I think the numbers are saying that something needs to be done and done quickly.”
Full presentation:
