Tag: unemployed

According to Statistics South Africa, the SA unemployment rate in the third Quarter (Q3) of 2023 was 41.2% (7.8 million people). In addition, youth unemployment (ages 15 to 34 years) in Q3 was 4.6 million, out of a total of 12.4 million unemployed people in the country. The total population is 61.02 million.

South Africans have been slowly marching towards serfdom, and unless something drastic changes, this march will continue. With this year’s budget speech on the horizon, in an election year, the country and the world will get a glimpse as to how bad things could be in the short to medium term.

Removing the causes of mass youth unemployment in South Africa would have multiple positive consequences for job seekers. If small businesses and households, “the natural employers of young and untrained workers in an open labour market”, were free of the burden of the minimum wage and other unnecessary regulatory burdens that have been imposed on them, they could make an unprecedent contribution to the economy.

The fact that a South African individual is unemployed, is not well-educated, and has had difficulty in finding employment, does not mean that government officials are entitled to treat them with disrespect. All citizens who obey the laws, and treat their fellow citizens with respect, are not only entitled to be treated with equal respect but also to have their rights, as described in the South African Constitution, fully respected.

Read our exclusive cover story titled Let me work! - official violation of the rights of the unemployed must end by Eustace Davie, Director, Free Market Foundation, plus a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the June/July 2023 edition.

If jobseekers in South Africa currently had the right to freely enter voluntary contracts with employers at wages and on conditions acceptable to both parties, the country would not have mass unemployment. Figures recently released by Statistics SA confirm the statement by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that at 29.8 percent South Africa had the highest unemployment rate in the world. At 4.9 percent the USA had the lowest rate.

Stats SA produces two quarterly surveys detailing South African employment. They are: The Quarterly Employment Survey, which examines VAT-registered businesses and includes detailed industry-level data on non-agricultural, formal employment; and The Quarterly Labour Force Survey, which surveys households and includes details on informal employment, agricultural employment and demographics of the workforce.

Labour unions are undoubtedly the biggest obstacle to any positive reform, not because this particular group of individuals is somehow more evil than the rest of us. It is simply a rational response to the particular set of incentives that union bosses are faced with.

Stats SA’s April Statistics of Liquidations and Insolvencies paint a very grim picture. The number of business liquidations increased by 53.1% between April 2018 and April 2019. The number of insolvencies increased by 30.1% between March 2018 and March 2019.

What can we do to stop the bleeding? According to SARS data, the number of companies in the financial and business services sector dropped from 222,532 in 2007 to 139,664 in 2016 - a loss of more than 80,000 firms in 10 years.