Employment in July was down for the third consecutive month although jobs in the public sector grew, according to the latest Adcorp Employment Index released on Wednesday.
“The public sector now accounts for all the job creation in our economy in 2011 while the growth in unofficial employment — coupled with the decline in official employment — reinforces a trend that has been in evidence since as far back as January 2000,” said Loane Sharp, Adcorp’s labour market analyst, in a statement.
Adcorp was predicting that South Africa would lose 468 192 jobs in the remaining months of 2011 and in 2012.
This was half as many as the economy shed during the recession.
Overall employment was down at an annual rate of 0.4% in July.
This equated to annual losses of 270 504 permanent and 79 380 temporary workers.
“Restrictive and increasingly obsolete labour laws suggest that employment will continue to slide.”
Government employment rose by an annual rate of 1.4% in July and “unofficial” jobs grew at an annual rate of 191 124 positions.
“Employment declined most sharply in the mining (7.7%) and manufacturing (8.6%) sectors in spite of sharply rising export prices for commodities and basic beneficiated manufactured products,” said Sharp. — Sapa