COSATU’s Statement on the 2023 First Quarter Unemployment Figures
16 May 2023
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) notes the latest increase in the narrow unemployment rate from 32.7% to 32.9% in the 1st Quarter of 2023. Any increase in the unemployment rate is deeply worrying. This comes against the welcome progress made last year when we saw decreases of 1% per quarter for the first three quarters of 2022.
All social partners need to be alarmed by this regression as no society can sustain itself with unemployment of 42.4%. We should not be relaxed when four (4) out of ten (10) people cannot find work to feed themselves and their families.
The Federation is deeply worried that what we hoped was momentum in reducing unemployment over the course of 2022, that this initial progress may be lost with the current rampant levels of load shedding suffocating the economy even further in 2023.
The government’s failure to fix load-shedding and drive economic recovery is reprehensible because, behind these numbers, there are struggling families and starving people. The latest numbers show that as of 2022 about 18,2 million South Africans live in extreme poverty.