Thousands of people will lose their jobs between now and Christmas and many more jobs will be on the line in the New Year as the economy suffers the effects of the global economic turmoil.
Job losses have been widespread in several of the country's major industries - manufacturing, mining, retailing and wholesaling - which have been particularly hard hit by a slowdown in consumer spending and which have had to retrench workers to contain costs.
"We are now two-and-half years into a downturn in the growth in spending. Things are likely to get worse before they get better," said Tony Twine, a senior economist at Econometrix.
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Twine said consumers would have to wait until April for the prospect of an interest-rate drop. Tough times were likely to continue until June.
'Things are likely to get worse before they get better' The biggest job losses have been in mining, in which, according to Statistics South Africa, there was a loss of 32 000 jobs in the third quarter of this year.
This figure is likely to increase following the announcement by the third-biggest producer of platinum, Lonmin, that it is considering retrenching 16 000 workers.
An announcement by Lonmin on the fate of the workers, many of them miners, is expected on Tuesday. The company has confirmed that there has been a steep decline in the demand for its platinum, which has been aggravated by a sharp drop in car production and sales of new cars.
Brand Pretorius, the chief executive of McCarthy, said car sales were down by 35 percent last month, forcing 100 dealerships to close and the 1 600 motor industry franchise operators to scale down operations.
"We created capacity for growth by investing millions of rands in new facilities but now find ourselves sitting with surplus capacity, that is why so many of us are suffering," he said.
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