South Africa’s unemployment rate rose from 34.9 percent in the third quarter of 2021 to 35.3 percent in the fourth quarter, according to Statistics South Africa’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey released on Wednesday.
The survey disclosed that the number of the employed increased by 262,000 persons to 14.5 million people, while the number of the unemployed also increased by 270,000 persons to 7.9 million people in the fourth quarter of last year.
“The broader trend that we’re seeing in the economy is that it’s becoming ever more capital intensive at the expense of millions in the labour markets searching for jobs,” an economist at the Econometrix firm, Laura Campbell, said.
“This is likely a sign of restrictive labour market conditions that encourage workers to keep pushing for higher wages which are above their productivity,” Campbell said.
According to the economist, “we’re expecting that employment will only get back to levels that prevailed pre-Covid-19 crisis in the second half of the decade.”
“Structural reforms, especially those related to education and labour market rigidity, are needed urgently to reverse this debilitating trend of economic growth.”
NM/jn/APA