Statistics SA has revealed that South Africa’s unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2020 (Q2) surprisingly declined to 23.3 percent.
Ordinarily, an unprecedented decline from 30 percent in the first quarter to 23 percent in Q2 would be good news.
2.2 million out of jobs
However, 2.2 million South Africans also lost their jobs during the same period, Stats SA said when it released its Q2 quarterly labour force survey on Tuesday. This means that the number of employed persons decreased to 14.1 million.
Explaining these contradictory figures, Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke said, “This sharp fall in the unemployment rate in quarter 2 is not a reflection of an improvement in the labour market, but rather an effect of the national lockdown, since the official definition of unemployment requires that people look for work and are available for work.
“In essence, the national lockdown hindered people from looking for work, so this significant decline in unemployment while employment is declining is inherent in the official definition of unemployment.”
Maluleke said the 2.2 million decrease in the number of employed persons is the largest between Q1 and Q2 since the survey began in 2008.
At the same time, the number of unemployed persons decreased by 2.8 million to 4.3 million compared to Q1. This resulted in a decrease of 5 million in the number of people in the labour force, a 21.4 percent decline. However, the number of people who were not economically active was 5.2 million.
Expanded unemployment rate
In terms of the expanded definition of unemployment, the unemployment rate increased to 42 percent, indicating that people were available for work but were not actively looking for it.
Maluleke said this “phenomenon of a greater increase in inactivity than in unemployment” is in line with global trends, with the exception of Canada and the US.
The survey also found that the majority of employed people continued receiving their salaries despite the lockdown imposed from late March. However, about a fifth of them reported salary reductions.
Maluleke added, “There seems to be some relationship between level of education and reduction in pay/salary.
“Almost 9 in every 10 employed graduates (89.7 percent) continued to receive a full salary, compared to 75.2 percent of those with less than matric as their highest level of education.”