South Africa’s quarterly employment down

JOHANNESBURG, Sept. 29 — South Africa lost 86,000 or 0.9 percent jobs quarter-on-quarter from March to June 2021, according to quarterly employment figures released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) on Tuesday.
It means that the number of employed people declined from 9,652,000 in Quarter one to 9,566,000 in the second quarter.
The Stats SA said employment in community service decreased by 2.3 percent, manufacturing by 1.4 percent and construction declined by 1.4 percent.
Full-time employment decreased by 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter. This was largely due to decreases in business services, manufacturing, construction,trade and electricity.
Part-time employment decreased by 5.6 percent quarter-on-quarter, from 1,050,000 in March 2021 to 991,000 in June 2021.
When it comes to earning, basic salary paid to employees increased by 7.3 billion rand (483 million U.S. dollars) from 646.7 billion rand in March 2021 to 653.9 billion rand in June 2021.
“This was largely due to increases in the following industries: business services, trade, manufacturing, transport, construction, and electricity. However, there were decreases in the mining and community services industries,” Stats SA said.
South Africa continued struggling with high levels of unemployment as experts said the only policy change would help turn around the economy and create jobs. (Xinhua)