AEI June 2010 

Salient features

• Employment continued to fall between May and June 2010, but at a marginal annualized rate of 0.26%.
• Employment fell most sharply in the highly cyclical construction (6.61%) and wholesale and retail trade (5.38%) sectors, which was offset by employment growth in finance (4.65%) and community services including government (3.21%).
• Employment of sales and service workers increased by 3.25% and of clerks by 2.19%.
• In this month’s analysis, we estimate the total cost to employers of administering and complying with labour laws introduced during the 1990s and 2000s. We estimate that labour laws and regulations cost R8,396.92 per employee per annum or R109.2 billion per annum for the economy as a whole. It is surprising, given the consequences of these laws, that regulatory impact assessments were not conducted prior to their introduction.

Download full report