State of the Nation: While politicians campaigned, 237,000 lost their jobs in South Africa By Tessa Knight
Unemployment and joblessness will, once again, be one of the pressing issues facing the incoming sixth democratic Parliament of South Africa. Just a week after elections, Statistics South Africa revealed that 237,000 people lost their jobs in the first quarter of this year — coinciding with politicians being on the election trail.
released by Stats SA this week. In a labour force of only 22.5-million that means 27.6% of South Africans are out of work. In comparison, unemployment in the UK is approximately 3.8% despite the economic turmoil of Brexit; 24.5% of Namibians are unemployed, and Zimbabwe has an “official” unemployment rate of about 5%.
Many of these discouraged work seekers are young people trying to enter the job market. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Investor Conference on 15 May, Cyril Ramaphosa againAfter years of being prevented from getting into various skills and professions, [youth] now get those. The doors of learning, universities and colleges, have been opened. They go to these institutions, they come out with certificates and degrees and they don’t get jobs,” Ramaphosa said.
And yet young women are most at risk of being unemployed. According to the report, four in every 10 young women in South Africa are not in employment, education or training .The expanded definition of unemployment includes people who are unemployed and people who are not economically active. This puts the total percentage of people without jobs in South Africa at 38%, a 1.3% increase from this time last year.
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