The Congress of South African Trade Unions is appalled to see that unemployment is still rising - from 25.0% to 25.7%, between the first and second quarters of 2011.
The more realistic expanded unemployment rate, which includes the ‘discouraged' people - those of working age, without work and available to start work, but who had not looked for work in the four weeks before the interview - rose from 36.5% to 36.9% in the same period.
The only small crumb of comfort is a drop in the number of these ‘discouraged' job seekers. More of them are now looking for work and therefore included in the reduced figure, though over the past year as a whole, the number of discouraged work seekers increased by 269 000.
But that cannot hide the fact that these figures are terrible news for the 7,678,000 people who are now unemployed (under the expanded definition) and for the country as a whole. It inevitable means hundreds more families being driven into a life of poverty.
This is the highest level of unemployment SA has experienced in more than 5 years and yet the drop in jobs has taken place at a time when the economy has been growing for seven consecutive quarters.
What is even more alarming is that total employment in the formal sector declined by 21,000 jobs from the first to the second quarter of 2011, while jobs in the informal sector (excluding agriculture) rose by 34,000 in the same period, and showed year-on-year growth of 27,000 jobs from the second quarter of 2010.
This means that not only are more workers becoming unemployed, but more of those with jobs are working on an informal, casual basis, in most cases on lower pay and with less security and fewer benefits.
Unsurprisingly the statistics indicate that a massive 59% of the unemployed have an education level of less than a matric, which clearly demonstrates the link between unemployment and our largely dysfunctional education system.
These statistics make it more urgent than ever to start implementing the job-creating policies promised in the State of the Nation Address, the Budget speech, IPAP2 and the New Growth Path, which pledged to create five million new jobs in ten years.
These include the many short-term policies like filling vacant posts in the public service and the expanded public works programme, and the long term strategy to shift the economy on to a new growth path to an economy based on manufacturing industry and decent, sustainable jobs. We hope the cabinet Lekgotla will reflect on this and we call on them to abandon the conservative macro economic framework that has imprisoned the progressive elements of the NGP and the IPAP2
Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, July 28 2011
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