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Tourism second biggest employer in SA

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The tourism sector is now the second biggest in terms of job creation, ranking only below agriculture in the country’s economy.

This has emerged from the latest Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) released by Statistics SA. Statistician General Risenga Maluleke says in terms of creating employment, the tourism industry has overtaken the mining sector.

Maluleke says in the year under review, the tourism industry also contributed about two-point-9 % or R125.1 billion of the GDP.

” We are talking about 2.9% of the GDP in 2016. That’s about R125.1 billion. Now when we look at tourism we can see that sitting at 2-point-9 its larger than agriculture which is sitting at 2% and of course smaller than mining.”

Maluleke says the almost 700 000 new jobs created were concentrated mainly in the road transport, food and beverages and accommodation sectors.

“We are talking about 686 596 jobs in 2016. About 29% almost 30% of those are sitting in the road transport, 21% in food and beverages; 19% accommodation. Retail of tourism products accounts for 16% and 4% is travel agencies and again 10% was others.”

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