Johannesburg - The government continues to be the employer of last resort since the 2008/09 recession, despite freezing the number of state employees and limiting public sector wage increases amid concerns from credit rating agencies.
A total of 93 000 jobs were created in the third quarter, according to the quarterly employment statistics released by Statistics SA on Monday.
This shows most of the new jobs were created thanks to a peculiarly large increase in the community services sector, adn were mainly temporary public service jobs.
Employment rose by 80 000 or 0.9 percent between September 2016 and September 2015.
The data is based on the latest Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES) and comes on the back of a November release, the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) that showed unemployment in South Africa rose to a record 27.1 percent high in the third quarter, the highest in 13 years.
Temporary staff
Statistician-general, Pali Lehohla, explained the difference between the two official sources of employment statistics. He said the QLFS was a survey of households, which collected information from about 30 000 dwelling units, and data on the labour market activities of individuals, whereas the QES was an enterprise-based survey that documented information from non-agricultural businesses from about 20000 units.
The community and social services industry led the increase in jobs by 78 000 or 3.1 percent in September compared with June on the back of temporary staff that was employed during the local government elections in August.
Further, institutions such as technikons collectively created 7 000 jobs. “This is mainly due to increases in employment in extra-budgetary institutions; universities and technikons; recreational, cultural and sporting activities; health and social work,” said Stats SA.
The community and social services were followed by the trade industry with 7 000 employees, construction and business services industry with 6000 employees, and the mining industry with 2 000 employees. Employment in the manufacturing sector was 23 000 jobs lower on an annual basis in September.
“Manufacturing has shown consistent bleeding of 3 000 jobs,” said Lehohla.
Gerrit van Rooyen, an analyst at NKC African Research, said encouragingly, employment in the mining industry grew for the first time this year, following job losses towards the end of last year.
The mining industry only contributed 2 000 jobs. “The mining industry has been in the doldrums from 2015, but it is picking up with 2 000 jobs gained,” said Lehohla.
However, there have been 16 000 job losses in the sector in the year to September.
Van Rooyen said: “The outlook for employment remains bleak over the medium term due to meager economic growth, a large skills shortage and a lack of employment-stimulating policies, which are insufficient to aid the creation of new employment opportunities that would absorb entrants into the labour market and reduce high levels of unemployment.”
Stats SA recorded an increase of R34 billion or 6.7 percent in earnings to employees.
The finance industry took the lion’s share of these, said Lehohla. Gross earnings for the quarter were R20 billion or 3.9 percent. The total earnings paid to employees amounted to R543 billion in September.
On an annual basis, StatsA said average monthly earnings paid to employees rose by 4.4 percent from R17 344 in August last year to R18 104 in August this year.