Gallo Images/Dino Lloyd
In his Budget speech on Wednesday, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said while the government would continue with job support programmes, the country s lacklustre growth is expected to persist for some time.
Half of the workers who lost jobs in April 2020 due to lockdown restrictions remained unemployed by October.
The Competition Commission is working on eliminating exclusive leases, cutting data costs and monitoring price gouging.
Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni said during his Budget Speech that despite government efforts to boost job creation and soften the blow for those who lost their jobs in the past year, the unemployment crisis in South Africa is showing few signs of letting up.
While the Eastern Cape tops the expanded unemployment chart among all provinces, its neighbour, the Western Cape’s rate stood at 26.8% as the least affected by the crisis.
Port Elizabeth residents woke up on Wednesday in the city of Gqeberha. No, this isn’t the South African version of
From Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha: Name change rattles SA
The name change has proved to be highly controversial. The DA’s Michael Cardo was scathing in his reaction, slamming the government for failing to ‘get their priorities right’.
“The Eastern Cape has the highest unemployment rate in the country, according to today’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey (52.4% on the expanded definition, almost 10 percentage points more than the national rate). But, hey, its towns and airports have a new bunch of names. #Progress”.
The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the fourth quarter showed that the number of employed people increased by 33,000 to 15 million. The number of unemployed people also increased by 701,000 to 7.2 million.
The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who were not actively looking for work in the fourth quarter, is 11.1 million people.
Stats SA said employment increased in most sectors in the last quarter of 2020, except in mining and finance. In the formal sector, employment increased by 1.8% and informal sector employment was up by 2.6%.
In private households, employment increased by 6.8% and in agriculture by 0.3%.
“The industries which gained the most jobs are community and social services (170,000) and construction (86,000). Compared to quarter 4 in 2019, employment contracted in all industries. Most job losses were observed in finance (256,000), community and social services (241,000) and manufacturing (230,000), said the report.