Employment has not grown over the last 20 years in South Africa, and in fact there were net job losses, research from the SA Reserve Bank showed on Tuesday.
In an article in the Reserve Bank’s new publication Labour Market Frontiers Thami Hlekiso said non-agricultural formal employment dropped from 5,1-million in 1980 to 4,7-million in 2001. During this time, economic activity grew by 1,7%, and the population grew from 30-million to 43-million.
However, Hlekiso said these results did not reflect the important shift into the non-formal labour market. He said the pattern of employment had changed substantially since the 1980’s, with a shift from mining and manufacturing to tertiary sectors like finance and business.
This was typical of developing and industrialised nations, said Hlekiso.
The government was no longer the major employer, employing only 18% of the workforce in 2001. In 1995 the public sector employed 24% of the workforce.
Hlekiso attributed this job shedding to the government’s policy of reducing inefficiencies, and outsourcing non-core functions.
In the 1990’s the mining sector shed 250 000 jobs, construction shed 100 000, and manufacturing declined by about 102 000 employees.
The service sector increased, as did business services (66 000 new jobs), and finance and insurance (44 000 additional jobs). Trade also increased its employment to 22% of the workforce.
Another article in the publication examined demographic trends, indicating that South Africa could be looking towards a diminishing labour pool in the future.
This was inferred from a decline in the youngest age group from the 1996 Census to the 2001 Census.
Researcher Moleboheng Lehutso-Phooko suggested this could be problematic when competing with other economies like China and India.
However, Lehutso-Phooko noted that in South Africa, demographics were not the be all and end all: ”The shedding of unskilled jobs persists, while the demand seemingly exceeds the supply of skilled workers.”
He said South Africa needed to focus on converting ”the potential working age population into a real labour force”.
Labour Market Frontiers was published on Tuesday and is available on the Reserve Bank’s website: www.reservebank.co.za. – Sapa