The South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) said although the unemployment figures for Q4 of 2022 show a minor decline, it remains doubtful that the country has entered a trajectory of growth of employment. Stats SA revealed yesterday that the country’s official unemployment rate eased marginally to 32.7% in the fourth quarter, a decrease of 0.2% from the previous quarter’s 32.9% Saftu’s, Trevor Shaku, said overall the economy has not recovered 486 000 jobs from the Q4 of 2019. He said it’s clear that the economy has yet to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The decline in unemployment came heavily from mining and others including utilities, finance and transport sector,” explained Shaku.

The uptick in employment speaks to the time of the year as many seasonal staff are brought on board to fill the spaces of permeant staff taking annual leave.

Speaking on VOC’s Breakfast show on Wednesday morning, Portfolio Head of Youth Employment at Momentum Metropolitan Holdings, Nkosinathi Mahlangu, explained how SA can retain this positive outlook.

“It was mentioned in the recent budget speech by the Minister of Finance that we need to equip our youth with skills that are necessary. We need to have a skills audit to determine where is the skills gap within the market. What are the pertinent skills that the economy needs and what will ensure that our youth are employable in a way that can be maintained,” added Mahlangu.

Meanwhile, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) believes the slight drop in the unemployment rate should not to be celebrated. Cosatu’s Tony Ehrenreich said the drop adds no substantial value to the fight against lack of employment in the country. He further stated the data did not consider the number of discouraged jobseekers who are no longer looking for work.

VOC