COSATU's response to employment stats

The Congress of South African Trade Unions is profoundly shocked at the latest employment figures from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).

By the narrow definition, which excludes those who have given up looking for work, South Africa's unemployment rate rose to 25.2% in the first quarter of 2012 from 23.9% in the fourth quarter of 2011, an increase of 1.3%. This means that 282 000 more people became unemployed between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012.

Given that on average every worker supports five dependents, this figure means that 1 410 000 additional people have been plunged into a life of poverty and misery in just three months.

It is utterly demoralising to see that if this trend continues we shall not only fail to meet the government's target of creating five million new jobs between 2010 and 2020, but end up with a net loss of jobs over those ten years!

The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) - a household-based survey started in 2008 - found that in the first quarter of 2012, 4.5 million persons were unemployed of whom 3.1 million or 67.8% have been looking for work for a year or longer. Meanwhile, 59.6% of the job seekers did not have matric, while 44% have never worked before.

The expanded unemployment rate which relaxes the requirement to be searching for work also increased, by 1.2% between the same two quarters, from 35.4% to a shocking 36.6%, 4.5 million people, well over a third of the potential workforce.

The only explanation from Stats SA for these terrible figures is that there is a seasonal effect. The previous quarter reflects the temporary workers taken on during the holiday period and then retrenched in the new year. This is further proof of the impact of the rapid casualisation of labour, which can lead to much bigger rises and falls in the unemployment rate. We should remember this exploitation of workers when we celebrate next December.

As well as the devastating effect that such levels of unemployment and poverty has on the individual workers who have lost their jobs and their families, the crisis reaches into every aspect of life. It increases still further the gap between the poorest and richest in the most unequal society on earth. Thousands more unemployed workers live in poverty, in shacks with no water, electricity or other basic services, while a small minority earn millions and live in a life of luxury.

Such poverty and inequality aggravates all the social problems which we see more and more - violent community protests, crime, corruption, xenophobia and the collapse of social and moral values. Such a level of unemployment is not just a personal and family disaster but a national catastrophe.

These statistics make COSATU more determined than ever to campaign, in the short term, for a significant cut in interest rates, to provide relief for employers struggling to avoid retrenching workers and an incentive to those wanting to create new jobs.

But in the long term, if we are really going to roll back the tide and create jobs on the scale we need, we have to implement, with urgency, discipline and precision, our central economic strategy. We must implement an overarching developmental plan to address all the structural fault lines of the apartheid economy and take us on to a new economic growth path.

Above all we have to shift our economy from one based on the export of raw materials and capital-intensive sectors to one that is labour-intensive, based on manufacturing industry and meeting the basic needs of our people.

We have to urgently roll the Industrial Policy Action Plan and the progressive aspects of the New Growth Path in order to activate and accelerate the five key job drivers:

1. Infrastructure development;

2. Labour-absorbing activities in all sectors';

3. Green economy initiatives;

4. Developing the social economy and public services;

5. Rural development

The focus must be on developing a new growth path that will defeat the three pre-eminent challenges facing our society; high levels of unemployment, deepening poverty and growing inequality, and all the consequent social ills. It is a challenge we dare not dodge. The consequences of failure are too terrible to contemplate.

Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, May 8 2012

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