More difficult to find jobs

Pretoria - The latest employment trends in South Africa indicate that the economy is not creating jobs and it is getting more difficult to get employed, according to Kefiloe Masiteng from Stats SA's Labour Force division on Tuesday.

She says an important number in the data is the 360 000 decline in employment year-on-year in the second quarter.

"It means the economy did not create jobs," she said. "It is also an indicator of an economy not growing."

"Employment is getting difficult as it is difficult to get into the labour force. It is also difficult to get short-term employment," she said.

This comes as data on Tuesday revealed that discouraged work seekers accounted for as many as 302 000 of the rise in the not economically active in South Africa.

These patterns suggest that in Q2 there was a shift from both employment and unemployment into discouragement as individuals gave up hope of finding work or felt that there were no jobs in the area in which they lived that matched their skills.

The data showed that among the unemployed, job losers increased 67 000 on the quarter and a massive 255 000 on the year.

While plenty of criticism erupted at the press conference about excluding discouraged work seekers from the unemployed ranks, Masiteng said that this way of reporting is internationally recognised and "gives a picture of the dynamics of employment".

"So now you can see why people are not looking for work, for example, it could not be out of choice," she explained.

Said Statistician-General Pali Lehohla: "When times are hard people stop searching. But they should search when times are hard."

South Africa's unemployment rate increased to 23.6% in the quarter ended June 2009 from 23.5% in the first quarter, Statistics SA data showed on Tuesday.

Jobs growth was reported at -2.0% quarter-on-quarter (q/q) from the -1.5% q/q seen in the first quarter.

The total number of employed people was reported to have dropped 267 000 to 13.369 million, while the total labour force was down 325 000 to 17.495 million.

Formal sector employment fell 93 000 to 9.356 million, and informal sector employment fell 41 000 to 2.109 million.

The labour force participation rate is the proportion of the working age population that is either employed or unemployed, and this rate was reported down 1.2% on the quarter.

However, discouraged work seekers were reported up 302 000 to 1.517 million. The not-economically active population was up 117 000 on the quarter to 12.068 million.

The data also showed that employment was down 2.6% y/y or -360 000. The unemployment rate increased 0.5% y/y.

- I-Net Bridge