Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian

Job Losses

latest news & developments
Former glory shattered: Residents attend a community meeting in Steve Tshwete Local Municipality, where the economic fallout of Mpumalanga’s contracting coal sector is increasingly visible. Once one of the country’s top-performing municipalities, it is now struggling with falling rates payments, growing arrears and rising indigent support applications as retrenchments increase. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee
Video

Coal’s slow death in Mpumalanga

As jobs disappear from the coal belt, Middelburg’s economy is buckling. Unpaid rates, collapsing businesses and stalled transition support are deepening the crisis

Over the past decade, the South African Post Office has had significant business problems, including debt to creditors and poor revenue collection.

Mid-term budget: ‘Tough love’ for Post Office, which faces liquidation

The treasury also did not allocate new funds to other struggling state-owned entities such as Denel, Transnet, the Land Bank and the South African National Roads Agency

Many of the post offices around the country are run
down and offer fewer services than previously. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

Please Mr Postman, deliver the cheque

In this financial year’s budget, Parliament did not allocate funding for the South African Post Office, which is waiting for a R3.8 billion tranche

If the sun sets on coal mines and oil rigs, a new horizon emerges: the dawn of a renewable energy revolution. But what happens to the workers whose livelihoods are tied to the old way of doing things? (Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Eskom workers worry the just transition will shed jobs

Workers at coal-fired power stations in Mpumalanga remain concerned despite assurances that the transition will be just

Threat: The rising water level will affect mining underground and should the toxic acid mine water break to the surface the groundwater could be contaminated. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy

Deep concern over rising underground tide of toxic acidic mine water on East Rand

Broken abstraction pumps at the Eastern basin treatment plant mean that water supply may become contaminated, posing a serious threat

Mail & Gaurdian

Editorial: Education failures are a failure for us all

For the next three months we all must critically engage with the education sector to halt the flood of a generation slipping through.

Too hot to handle: Labourers take cover from the sun inside a concrete pipe at a construction site near Egypt’s capital, Cairo. Photo: Khaled Desouki/AFP

Climate crisis: Rising heat imperils outdoor work

Workers in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the western Pacific will be most affected if temperatures continue to rise.

Digitalisation and automation will help with health and safety issues in South Africa’s mining industry.  (Russell Scott, Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Content Pool; Anglo American)

Gold‌ ‌is‌ ‌mining’s‌ ‌biggest‌ ‌jobs‌ ‌loser,‌ ‌as‌ ‌platinum‌ ‌rakes‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌cash‌

The industry has lost 23 000 jobs since 2012, according to a Statistics South Africa census

The rebuild begins: Experts estimate that repairing or rebuilding looted stores will take between a few months and two years, depending on the severity of the damage. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)

Employment bloodbath on the cards

The unrest in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal has deepened the country’s unemployment crisis as the government mulls additional relief funding

Covid-19 effects undermine nature conservation efforts

Wildlife rangers are out of work and reduced patrols abet poaching

Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande. (Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images

NSFAS funds, jobs for youth dry up

The already turbulent labour market could see more strain if aspiring students lose out

No money to fund first-time university students, Nzimande says

Higher education minister says NSFAS is experiencing a funding shortfall and has requested that universities extend their registration period

Living up to our promise of ubuntu

South Africa needs active citizens and real change starts in the home, with conversations about social justice

The year the music died — almost

Half of the participants in a recent study on the live music industry are likely to quit their craft

Ending the lockdown is a policy both Trump and Biden voters could agree on. (Noam Galai/Getty Images)

The US election problem is over, but the coronavirus lingers

Ending the lockdown is a policy both Trump and Biden voters could agree on