By Kouthar Sambo

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has released its first-ever migration profile, which has tracked the movements of labour migration in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

Speaking on VOC’s In Conversation show on Wednesday, the Chief Director responsible for demographic and population Statistics Diego Iturralde, said the genesis of this report stems from the processes around the negotiation of the global compact for safe, orderly, and regular migration, which South Africa signed in 2018.

“One of the objectives of the global compact was to improve data collection of migration in all its forms, and it was recommended that member states who signed the global compact should produce a migration profile report that is comparable in each respective country.”

“We are excited to take this on, and we are hoping that this will be the beginning of an enhanced collaboration between data gatherers with regard to migration statistics,” added Iturralde.

The concept of “stealing jobs” is something that has been in the public space in the past, hence the rise in xenophobic attacks noted Iturralde. However, the reports show that the proportion of migrants, he explained, who participate in certain industries and occupations is relatively low.

“The highest proportion is in construction, which is 17.2% and the highest proportion in crafts and related workers (other than the domestic worker’s sphere) is at 15.8% and the other industries which make up the scope of the labour market is lower than that,” detailed Iturralde.

Photo: Stats SA/X