Introduction
The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) is a household based sample survey that collects information on employment, unemployment and inactivity for people aged 15 years and above. The results for the QLFS are given for people aged 15 to 64 years who are referred to as the population of working age. The reference period for data collection is the first two weeks of every month in a quarter.
Quarter on quarter
Employment
Between the first quarter and the second quarter of 2010 the results show that employment contracted by 0,5% or 61 000 jobs. This is an improvement to the rate of decline between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010 where employment contracted by 1,6% or 171 000 jobs. This change is also at a lower rate than the same period last year when employment contracted by 2,0% or 267 000 jobs.
In the second quarter of 2010 formal sector employment contracted by 1,4% or 129 000 jobs while informal sector employment went up by 5,7 % or 115 00 jobs. Agriculture also went down by 32 000 jobs, and private households declined by 14 000 jobs.
The loss of jobs in the formal sector was driven by construction where employment contracted by 7,1 % or 54 000 jobs, transport with a contraction of 6,3% or 36 000 jobs and manufacturing where employment declined by 4,9% or 74 000 jobs.
The jobs gained in the informal sector non-agriculture were driven by job gains in trade (47 000), construction (40 000) and manufacturing (20 000).
Figure 1, below, shows that the industries that gained jobs in the second quarter of 2010 were finance, trade, mining, utilities and community and social services while jobs were lost in private households, transport, construction, manufacturing and agriculture.
The employment figures, therefore, show that while employment continued to decline in the second quarter it is not at the levels observed in the first quarter of 2010 nor is it at the levels observed in the first quarter of 2009. As a result of the insignificant decline in total employment the employment-to-population ratio, which is a proportion of the employed to the working age population, remained virtually unchanged from 40,8% in the 1st quarter of 2010 to 40,6% in the second quarter of 2010.
Unemployment
The levels of the unemployed hardly moved from quarter-to-quarter and resulted in a virtually unchanged unemployment rate of 25,3% up by 0,1 of percentage point from the first quarter of 2010. While the unemployment rate remains unchanged, 4,3 million people remain unemployed in South Africa.
The provincial disparities in the unemployment rate are shown in figure 2 below. In the second quarter of 2010 the Northern Cape had the highest unemployment rate (30,1%).
Year-on-year
The year-on-year picture shows the cumulative effect of the declines over the past year as employment contracted by 4,7% (627 000 jobs). Job losses affected all industries except community and social services, finance and private households. The fall in employment was accompanied by an increase in unemployment (up by 187 000 persons) and another increase by 390 000 of persons who became discouraged. These patterns suggest that there was a shift from employment into unemployment and discouragement. The employment contractions described above led to an increase in the unemployment rate by 1,7 percentage points to 25,3%, a fall in the absorption rate by 2,4 percentage points to 40,6% and another fall in the labour force participation rate by 2,0 percentage points to 54,3%.
For media enquiries contact:
Ms Kefiloe Masiteng
Deputy Director General: Population and Social Statistics
Tel: 012 310 2109
For technical enquiries contact:
Ms Yandiswa Mpetsheni
Executive Manager: Labour Statistics
Tel: 012 310 8608
