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· The South Africa’s National Statistics Agency said that there
was significant increase in unemployment in the third quarter of 2020
· While the number of employed persons increased by 543,000 to 14.7 million in the third quarter of 2020, the number of unemployed
persons increased by 2,2 million to 6,5 million compared to the 2nd quarter of 2020
· That means the unemployment climbed by 7.5% between July and September to reach 30.8%
The South Africa’s National Statistics Agency said that there was a significant increase in unemployment in the third quarter of 2020. Presently, the statistics put the number of unemployed people at more than 30% of the working population. This is the highest level of unemployment since 2008 and a record number and is mostly attributed to Covid-19 pandemic, though traces of the lowdown were there earlier also due to the continued recession that the South African economy has been undergoing in the recent years since the financial meltdown.
While the number of employed persons increased by 543,000 to 14.7 million in the third quarter of 2020, the number of unemployed persons increased by 2,2 million to 6,5 million compared to the 2nd quarter of 2020. That means the unemployment climbed by 7.5% between July and
September to reach 30.8%. Most of the people affected belonged to the young age group. Unemployment increased by 9 percentage points in the 15-24 age group during July and September.
Seven out of ten people of the 14,7 million persons who were employed in Q3: 2020 were supposed to work during the national lock down by the companies/organizations they work for. But it was found that those who actually worked were men in most industries. In the community and social services sector and private households, the majority of the
people who worked were women. A very high proportion of people, almost 90% of the people working in the construction industry, were men. People had indicated national lockdown as the main reason for not actually working (71.7%), while the rest indicated ill health (13.3%); family responsibility (3.2%); or shift work arrangements (11.9%). The number of people worked from home also decreased during this time.
The proportion of people who worked from home in the third quarter has declined to 10.9% as against 17% who worked from home in the second quarter. Working from home was more prevalent among Professionals and Managers, who had the access and infrastructure to facilitate work sitting at home. The other finding of the survey is that most of the employed people continued to receive pay during the lock down.
Reduced salaries were offered to those with lower levels of education. The data was collated over the phone unlike in the earlier quarters when data was gathered from face-to-face interviews.
