AEI April 2011 

Salient features

• Employment put in a very strong showing during March, which was the first month since August 2008 – more than two and a half years ago – that all sectors, occupations and employment types recorded positive growth. The highest growth rates were recorded in agency employment (9.9%), in the transport (18.3%), electricity (13.6%) and mining (11.5%) sectors, and in agricultural (11.8%), professional (10.8%) and machine operator (10.4%) occupations. Total employment grew 5.6% during the month.
• Employment in the official sector grew 7.3%, while employment in the unofficial sector grew 2.0%, which is the first time since January 2006 that the formal sector drew workers out of informal employment.
• Temporary work grew by 3.7% during the month, of which agency work grew by 9.9% while non-agency temporary work declined.
• In this month’s analysis, we take a closer look at the reasons for growth of temporary employment. Since January 2000, when Adcorp first compiled these statistics for South Africa, traditional permanent employment has declined by 20.9% (representing 1.9 million people) and temporary, contract and other forms of “atypical” employment has increased by 64.1% (representing 2.4 million people). In other words, all of South Africa’s employment growth over the past decade – and then some – has been of a temporary nature.

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