Economists say they expect a slight improvement in the number of jobs created in the second quarter. Stats SA is expected to release the Quarterly Labour Force Survey on Tuesday morning.
Tomorrow, @SGMaluleke will release the #employment and #unemployment figures for Q2:2023 at a media briefing in Tshwane.
Members of the media are invited as follows:
Date:Tues, 15 Aug 2023
Lock up: 11:00
Embargo: 11:30
Venue: #StatsSA building, ISIbalo House, 1 Koch Street pic.twitter.com/q88iXV45GZ— Stats SA (@StatsSA) August 14, 2023
Harry Ramkapole, Managing Director at Neoentle Labour Solutions, says he anticipates that the survey will show a slight improvement compared to the numbers that came out in the first quarter. In the first quarter of this year, unemployment was 32.9%.
Ramkapole says Panyaza Lesufi’s Nasi iSpani recent campaign that saw 8000 young people being employed will see the quarterly labour force survey show a slight increase in the number of jobs created in the second quarter of this year. He says because of this, many other indirect jobs were created, which is a positive contribution to the country’s economy. This is despite the many other factors that hinder the country’s growth.
“However, the 8000 jobs that were created by the province have at least a positive impact because these are direct jobs, and these direct jobs will create other indirect jobs. For example, we’re now looking at now 8000 people who will need to travel or commute from wherever they live to their new places of work. So. Indirectly, the taxi industry will benefit from the 8000 jobs that have been created by the province. The quarterly survey participation rate as a result of these new jobs that have been created recently compared to the previous quarter is low, and I’m truly leaning towards about 0.5 to 0.9 in percentage growth of newly created jobs as compared to the previous quarter.”
Chief Economist at Antswisa Advisory, Miyelani Mkhabela, also says he expects to see a slight increase in jobs created in the second quarter.
“Even if the numbers don’t really show maybe a direct 1% increment in jobs, I still believe that we are going to see an improvement in registering some employment. It can be.5%, it can be.6%, but there might be a good number that is better than the last employment statistics.”
But COSATU Parliamentary Co-coordinator Matthew Parks says that as a federation, they are fearful of the numbers that will come out tomorrow due to the current unstable economic conditions in the country.
“COSATU is fearful of the quarterly labour report that is due out next week on the unemployment figures. We already have an unemployment rate of 42.6% and an unemployment rate for young people of over 60%. The economy is still extremely fragile, battling to recover from COVID-19 digging the huge problems of load shedding of cable, theft, and deteriorating SOEs and public services and high levels of corruption. It is estimated that the crisis affecting electricity in Eskom, as well as the crisis affecting the ports and PARASA metro rail, have possibly shaved off about 2% from the economic growth projection for this year and possibly caused the economy to create about 780,000 new jobs.
Statistics South Africa will release the unemployment numbers for the months starting April to June on Tuesday at 11:30.
