AEI October 2011 

Salient features

• Employment grew by a slight 2.5% in September, mostly due to a 4.0% increase in employment by temporary employment agencies and a 7.7% increase in employment in the unofficial economy. All other categories of employment were essentially unchanged.
• Employment dropped sharply in the manufacturing (-16.7%), transportation and logistics (-9.0%) and construction (-4.6%) sectors – representing a loss of 25,000 jobs during the month. These losses wereoffset by employment gains in the government (+10.5%), finance (+8.2%) and wholesale and retail trade (+6.6%) sectors.
• Continuing a long-standing trend, employment of high-skilled and office workers grew by 8.8% (or 48,000 jobs) whereas employment of low- and semi-skilled workers fell by 6.4% (or 26,000 jobs).
• South Africa’s informal sector – the unofficial part of the economy whereby many people are forced to eke out a meagre economic existence through lack of formal job opportunities, and which evades income taxes and circumvents labour laws – now represents 32.8% of SA’S potential workforce. During September the informal sector grew at an annual rate of 7.7% making it the fastest-growing segment of South African economic activity as it relates to individuals. More than 6.2 million people eke out a living in this sector, unprotected by labour laws and beneath the tax authorities’ radar screens, making it the second-largest sector of the labour market after officially recorded
  employment.

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