Figures from Statistics South Africa show increasingly more young people are out of work. Courtesy #DStv403
PRETORIA - Analysts describe the 55.2-percent joblessness rate among the youth as a ticking time bomb.
Figures from Statistics South Africa show increasingly more young people are out of work.
The official unemployment rate has now hit 27.6-percent in the three months to March this year and that is up from 27.1-percent in the three months before.
The figure is up half a percentage point from the end of 2018. Courtesy #DStv403
As government figures out how to meet its objective of creating nearly 300, 000 jobs per year, some economists are sceptical.
“When you start looking at the numbers where the loss is so great even on a year-on-year basis it makes the government goal of creating these jobs look like pie in the sky,” said Econometrix economist Laura Campbell.
Most pressing are the millions of young people who are unemployed, regardless of education level and those who have neither jobs nor schooling.
An estimated 237, 000 unemployed people lost their jobs in the first quarter of 2019 with the overall number of unemployed standing at 6.2-million and there's been a little good news.
“We also have observed that in the area of transport there were gains of 59,000 jobs quarter on quarter but they were not enough to offset the unemployment rate,” Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke.
Figures from Statistics South Africa show increasingly more young people are out of work. Courtesy #DStv403
The formal sector has bled the most jobs. Construction leads the pack with 142, 000 jobs lost.
It is followed by finance and services.
The agricultural sector lost 12, 000 jobs.
Meanwhile, the absorption rate dropped by 0.7-percentage points to 42.6-percent.
eNCA reporter Dimakatso Leshoro has more details in the video above.
