Statistics South Africa released its Quarterly Employment Statistics showing that employment decreased by 31,000 quarter-on-quarter, from 9,620,000 in June 2017 to 9,589,000 in September.
This means that 31,000 jobs in total were lost between the second quarter and the third quarter of 2017, amounting to a 0.3 percent decrease. StatsSA said this was largely due to decreases in the community services, manufacturing, mining, electricity, trade, and business services.
FNB senior economic analyst Jason Muscat in a Fin24 report said that the job shedding was greater than market expectations and it is of concern how broad-based the shedding was. “We maintain that the employment rate is likely to remain flat over the forecast horizon given low levels of investment, confidence and economic growth.”
“We believe this ongoing trend reflects efforts to reduce the public sector headcount,” said Muscat. But this effect was offset by public sector wage growth, driven by 7.7% growth for community service employees and 10.1% at electricity utilities.
Other sectors include manufacturing which was down 0.4% or 5 000 jobs shed; the mining sector which was down 1.9% or 9 000 jobs shed; electricity down 1.6% or 1 000 jobs shed, trade was down 0.3% or 7 000 jobs shed and business services were down 0.3% or 6 000 jobs shed.
There were increases in employment in the construction industry, up 4 000 and the transport industry, up 3 000.
