Trade union Solidarity on Thursday said it supports the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) argument that South African should have one definition of unemployment, since the existing two definitions have caused considerable confusion in the past.
On Thursday, the ILO was quoted as saying that by having two definitions of unemployment a lot of confusion is caused, especially in South Africa where the difference between the two definitions is very large.
In South Africa, the official version of unemployment requires that an unemployed person must have actively looked for work in the previous four weeks, while the expanded definition does not have that requirement.
“Monitoring such a tremendous problem [as unemployment] and taking steps to correct it, however, require the means to measure it, and everyone has to agree on what is being measured and how the measuring is done. All possible sources of information must be checked and the issue must be thoroughly researched,” said Solidarity economist Lullu Krugel.
The ILO was reported to have said that the standard definition — the official one in South Africa’s case — is the better measure to use as it is better defined.
However, it is nowhere near sufficient to reflect what is going on in the South African labour market, the ILO said.
“Informed people understood the difference between the two definitions and knew how to use them correctly and in the right circumstances. It did, however, mean that the wrong figures were sometimes quoted out of context, which made it difficult — and sometimes misleading — to compare South Africa’s position to that of foreign countries.
“The official definition is the internationally accepted norm,” Krugel said.
In the Labour Force Survey released in September last year, Statistics South Africa still used both definitions of unemployment. The latest survey, however, dealing with the position in March this year, contained only the official definition.
Information pertaining to the so-called “disheartened workers” was not included, Solidarity said.
Krugel said the high percentage of disheartened workers in South Africa is worrying.
“Disheartened workers are not regarded as part of the official unemployment statistics, since they are unemployed persons who are no longer actively looking for work.
“In South Africa, this group constitutes 26,8% of the non-economically active population. Apart from people who are still going to school or studying, an inability to find employment is the main reason why people are no longer part of the economically active population,” Krugel said.
“This gives rise to the questions: Why have these people been discouraged from looking for work? Why were their efforts unsuccessful? These questions warrant further investigation and should be reflected in information about the South African labour market,” she added.
Krugel argued that factors such as inadequate training, a lack of public transport and its unreliability, and the cost involved in looking for work all play a role in the high percentage of disheartened workers.
“More research on this issue is needed in order to establish whether these assumptions are true. The labour market does not, in other words, manage to unite the job seeker and the job supplier.
“The argument about the two definitions should perhaps be shelved and an effort should rather be made to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the South African labour market,” Krugel stated. — I-Net Bridge