The South African Federation of Trade Unions(SAFTU) remains unimpressed by the
employment figures in the third quarter’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), which
reported an unemployment reduction of 1.4 percentage points. These figures continue to
vindicate our position that the growth needed to create adequate secure and decent jobs will
never be realised on the current neoliberal economic trajectory.
The QLFS reports that there has been a miserable increase of 294,000 jobs in the 3rd quarter,
bringing the number of employed people to 16.9 million. The major contributor to this
increase in employment figures has been the community and social services sector, with
194,000 jobs. The formal industry contributed 122 000 jobs, while the informal sector created
165 000. The number of unemployed people has decreased by 373,000, while the number of
discouraged job seekers increased by 160,000.
The financial sector recorded a decrease in employment of 189,000, manufacturing registered
a loss of 20,000, and the transport sector shed 18,000 jobs.
That the community and social services sector, with 194,000 jobs, is a major contributor to
the increase in employment figures, while manufacturing has seen a decline of 20,000 jobs, is
indicative of the continued de-industrialisation of the South African economy.
In short, the rise of inferior, insecure and poor-paying jobs (precarity) continues. The
destruction of more secure and better-paying jobs in the manufacturing sector means more
and more workers are being moved to jobs that pay poverty wages with no benefits such as
provident funds. This is coupled with the refusal by the government to increase spending in
the economy for public work programmes on decent wages to solve the problem of
infrastructure backlogs. In short, the march towards what we call the working poor, which
leads to deeper levels of inequalities, continues.
These figures are not a cause for celebration in an economy projected to grow by an average
of 1.6% in the next three years, as per National Treasury estimations. This picture is all the
more bleak when it is considered that South Africa has an average population growth rate of
1.3% per year from 2020 to 2024. According to some estimates, the economy would have to
grow by an average of 3% annually to absorb about 500,000 new entrants into the labour
market. We, however, need at least 5 to 6% growth to begin breaking the backbone of
unemployment. The government strategy for most of the past 30 years has failed dismally to
achieve the economic growth needed to address the catastrophic levels of unemployment.
We have always maintained that economic growth and employment remain will elusive until
the current neocolonial economic structure and the macroeconomic trajectory is changed.
However, with the so-called GNU in government, there is no possibility of a change in the
country’s economic path. In its Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, the Treasury re
commited itself to fiscal consolidation, a euphemism for budget cuts in neoliberal talk. This
means the government intends to do nothing about the estimated 166,000 vacancies in the
state sector. If anything, more jobs will be culled through early retirement strategy or just
downright cuts, as shown in the case of the Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal education
departments, which intend to cut 2400 and 11 092, respectively.
The SOEs, including the harbours and the pots, are to be partially privatised through the
public-private partnership as per the World Bank’s and the IMF’s prescripts.
Governments are increasingly subsidising, taking over, and guaranteeing the private sector’s
risks of investments. The ideology of the free market and risk-taking is fast becoming a thing
of the past, as the government has proven in the case of IPPs. Gautrain is now being extended
to so-called new public/private partnerships in the harbours and Transnet.
The current strategy is also intended to efficiently facilitate the movement of raw materials
out of the country, consistent with neoliberal wisdom that countries must focus on their
comparative advantage. That is, instead of beneficiation and the re-industrialization of the
economy, the so-called GNU wants to intensify the export-led, low-wage neo-colonial
economic structure of South African capitalism enacted by the ANC when it adopted the
misnamed Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) in 1996. This recipe for developing
an economy has led to continued de-industrialization, as witnessed by the continued shedding
of jobs in the manufacturing sector and the chronically low gross capital formation. Most
crucially, this path has brought untold misery, poverty and hunger for the overwhelming
majority of the working class.
This unyielding commitment to neoliberalism can only mean one thing: no change is on the
horizon for the 30 million working-class people living in poverty; the 21% of working-class
children who suffer malnutrition will increase; the 72% of the unemployed youth below the
age of 25 will increase. Many more working-class people will continue to fall into the youth
categories of the Not in Employment, Education and Training (NEET),now numbering at
catastrophic 3.5 million, and the discouraged job seekers respectively.
The working class is under siege. Therefore, it must mobilise and organise itself to defend what
litle of its livelihood remains from the systematic capitalist atacks. SAFTU is convening shop
steward councils nationwide to crystallise a strategy and a fighting programme.
