About 5,3-million people in South Africa, or 31,2% of those economically active, were officially unemployed in March this year, Statistics SA said on Tuesday. The corresponding figures for September and March last year, which Stats South Africa provided earlier, were 30,5% and 29,4% respectively.
In the expanded definition of unemployment — including the so-called discouraged jobseekers — the rate stood at 42,1% (8,4-million people) in March 2003, Stats SA said, releasing the results of its latest Labour Force Survey (LFS).
Six months earlier unemployment in the expanded definition stood at 41,8% and a year earlier at 40,9%.
The expanded definition includes those economically active South Africans between the ages of 15 and 65 who are willing and able to work, but have not tried to find employment four weeks prior to being surveyed.
Stats SA said it had not made a comparison of the results of the latest round of the LFS with those of previous rounds. That was because Census 2001 formed the basis of the March 2003 round, while the previous ones were based on Census 1996.
The agency was bench-marking the previous LFS rounds to the Census 2001 results, a process expected to be completed by the end of this year, deputy director-general Dr Ros Hirschowitz told reporters in Pretoria.
”We do not expect massive changes… (The figures) should not change dramatically, not the proportions, anyway.”
In terms of the official definition, 35,2% of economically active women and 27,7% of men were unemployed in March this year. In the expanded definition the figures were 48,4% for women and 35,9% for men.
Of the population groups, black South Africans had the highest unemployment rates, of 37% (official definition) and 49,1% (expanded definition).
The corresponding rates for whites were 6,9% and 9,5% respectively, for coloureds they were 22,1% and 28,1 %, and for Indians 22,5% and 25,5%.
Limpopo was the province with the highest jobless rates — 38,4% (official) and 57,5% (expanded), followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 35,5% and 46,7% respectively.
The official and expanded rates for other provinces were: North West ‒32,9% and 46,4%; Free State — 31,8% and 40,1%; Gauteng ‒- 31,5% and 38,8%; Mpumalanga 30,5% and 44,6%; Eastern Cape ‒30,2% and 44%; and Northern Cape ‒- 28,9% and 39,1%.
The Western Cape had the lowest jobless rates, of 20,3% and 25% respectively.
Of the 11,6-million employed people in South Africa, 63,6% worked in the formal sector, 16% in the informal sector, 8,7% as domestic workers, 7,5% in commercial agriculture and 3,6% in subsistence or small-scale agriculture.
About a fifth of employed people worked in the wholesale and retail trade industry; 18,9% in community, social and personal services; 14,4% in manufacturing; and 11,1% in agriculture.
People with post-matric qualifications were more likely to be employed than those without, the statistical release said.
”The highest unemployment rates are found among those with educational qualifications between grade 8 and grade 12, both for males and for females.”
About one million people — both employed and unemployed — did voluntary work, the release said.
Stats SA also released its Survey of Employment and Earnings (SEE) for March. It found that about 20 000 fewer people were employed in the formal non-agricultural business sector at that time than in December 2002. This represented a decrease of 0,3%.
Over the same time, the gross earnings by people working in the sector had decreased by 2,6%. – Sapa