By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The official unemployment rate declined further to 32.9% in the third quarter of 2022, from 33.9% in the second, Statistics SA reported on Tuesday.
The data shows that the country gained 204,000 between the second and third quarters of 2022, with the total number of persons employed up 1.3% to 15.8 million people.
To better understand the observed large changes in the key labour market indicators between Q2: 2022 and Q3: 2022, Stats SA said that special tabulations were done to study movements between labour market statuses.
“It was observed that a large number of persons moved from the ‘unemployed’ category to the ’employed’ and ‘not economically active’ statuses between the two quarters, which resulted in a decrease in the unemployment rate,” the stats body said.
However, it noted that the labour force participation rate in Q3: 2022 was lower than that reported in Q2: 2022 as a result of these movements – decreasing by 0.3 of a percentage point to 58.3%.
The absorption rate increased by 0.4 of a percentage point to 39.1% in the third quarter of 2022 compared to the second quarter of 2022.
The number of unemployed persons decreased by 269,000 to 7.7 million, and discouraged work-seekers also decreased by 54,000 to 3.5 million in the third quarter.
According to Stats SA, the number of people who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement increased by 264,000 between the two quarters, however, resulting in a net increase of 210,000 in the not economically active population.
This was driven mainly by an influx of students, Stats SA said.
Job growth was recorded in Manufacturing (123,000), Trade (82,000), Construction (46,000) and Transport (33,000), which saw the most significant job gains.
Meanwhile, job losses were recorded in Finance (-80,000), Private households (-36,000) and Mining and Agriculture (-1,000) each.
Provincially, the number of employed persons increased in six provinces between Q2: 2022 and Q3: 2022.
The largest employment increases were recorded in Gauteng (136,000), Western Cape (85,000), KwaZulu-Natal (57,000) and Mpumalanga (32,000).
Employment losses were recorded in North West (-66,000), Limpopo (-55,000) and Free State (-9,000) during the same period.
North West recorded the biggest quarter-to-quarter change in employment with a decrease of 7.1%.
President Cyril Ramaphosa says that National Treasury is currently modelling a new grant to assist job seekers in the country.
However, he said that the implementation of such a grant would depend on the availability of funds and alluded that it could not co-exist with the R350 social relief distress (SRD) grant, which has been extended to March 2024.
Responding in a written parliamentary Q&A this week, Ramaphosa said that the government has considered various options to support the unemployed in addition to the many measures that are currently in place.
“A basic package of support in the form of a work-seekers grant that would assist the person in looking for work and travel to interviews actively is being modelled by the National Treasury,” he said.
“The implementation of such an allowance or grant will depend on the availability of funding, taking into account the government’s commitment to the R350 SRD grant that is currently being paid.”
The president said that several measures are already in place to assist job seekers.