Employment rate drops in SA but still rigid

According to the latest statistics, in the past few months 308,000 new jobs were created in the South Africa’s economy.

In the past four months the rate of the people who have lost their hope of getting any kind of work fell by 1.2% point to 35.6%.

COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) greeted the Quarterly Labour Force Survey report for the third quarter of 2013, indicating that it would greatly help in reducing social problems.  

According to their report the unemployment rate in the has gone down by 24.7% in the third quarter this year.

The National Employers Association of South Africa (NEASA) said that it was inspired due to the drop in the unemployment figures officially which looks similar to the development last seen in 2008.

But the association as quick to point out was too early to celebrate.

On this COSATU reflected the actual scenario by saying that “its still too early to celebrate because the unemployment rate is still very high.”

NEASA further said that “a considerable change in the job creation will not take place unless the ongoing imperfections in the market are not pointed out and solved.”

Gerhard Papenfus - the CEO of the association said that “The manufacturing sector, an important hub for job creation was still shedding 68 000 jobs and the agriculture sector was also partially affected by the huge wage increase earlier in this year”  

COSATU said that the social problems in the country like the recent violent community protests, crime, corruption, xenophobia and the collapse of social and moral values were also becoming worse day by day due to the increasing unemployment rates.

The federation said that “This current level of unemployment is not just a matter of personal or family destruction but it is nation wide trouble.”

The report states that from the 10.4 million approx 3.3 million youngsters between the age 15-24 years are not employed, educated or trained in the third quarter of 2013.

Papenfus said that SA needs a redefined labour market which reduce red tape, creates jobs, boosts up entrepreneurship, increase productivity, encourage the development of more and more skills, and develop both,the business and investors confidence.

On the other side COSATU believes that to create sufficient amount of jobs “the government must show that it is moving ahead with practical implementation and sufficient resources of the Industrial Policy Action Plan and the Infrastructure Development Plan announced in the 2012."

In order to increase the economy and expand the economy, State institutions, local procurement and investments by the state entities were called.