Cosatu has lambasted the Eastern Cape’s job creation performance after the province lost 42000 jobs in the last three months of 2014.
This is despite a slight improvement in national employment figures for the period.
According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday, the unemployment rate in the Eastern Cape rose by 3% to over 29% while nationally it dropped from 25.4% to 24.3% between October and December (Q4).
Taking into account those who can work but are so discouraged that they are not even looking for employment – and are not counted in the official statistics – the province’s unemployment rate has actually risen to 41%.
The Eastern Cape is one of the only two provinces hit by job losses. The Western Cape lost 12000 jobs in the same period.
The worst-hit sectors were manufacturing, where employment declined by 7.5%; utilities dropped by 32%; construction by 13.3%; and transport by 22.9% in the Eastern Cape. Trade bucked the trend, increasing by 9.8%, and mining by 29%.
Cosatu Eastern Cape secretary MacVicar Dyasopu attributed the poor employment track record to a failure in implementing job-creating projects and rife corruption.
“Eastern Cape appears to systematically and consistently be operating on reverse gear on almost all of our social needs,” said Dyasopu, mentioning the weak 2014 matric results, poor health services and delays in implementing projects that could create jobs such as the Umzimvubu water catchment project and the Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) project in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan municipality.
Dyasopu called on the province to consider radical land and agrarian reform to ameliorate the effects of unemployment and poverty.
He said “a plethora” of vacant posts in government should be filled as measures to deal with the unemployment challenge. — siyam@dispatch.co.za
EC bucks Q4 trend and loses jobs
This is despite a slight improvement in national employment figures for the period.
According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday, the unemployment rate in the Eastern Cape rose by 3% to over 29% while nationally it dropped from 25.4% to 24.3% between October and December (Q4).
Taking into account those who can work but are so discouraged that they are not even looking for employment – and are not counted in the official statistics – the province’s unemployment rate has actually risen to 41%.
The Eastern Cape is one of the only two provinces hit by job losses. The Western Cape lost 12000 jobs in the same period.
The worst-hit sectors were manufacturing, where employment declined by 7.5%; utilities dropped by 32%; construction by 13.3%; and transport by 22.9% in the Eastern Cape. Trade bucked the trend, increasing by 9.8%, and mining by 29%.
Cosatu Eastern Cape secretary MacVicar Dyasopu attributed the poor employment track record to a failure in implementing job-creating projects and rife corruption.
“Eastern Cape appears to systematically and consistently be operating on reverse gear on almost all of our social needs,” said Dyasopu, mentioning the weak 2014 matric results, poor health services and delays in implementing projects that could create jobs such as the Umzimvubu water catchment project and the Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) project in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan municipality.
Dyasopu called on the province to consider radical land and agrarian reform to ameliorate the effects of unemployment and poverty.
He said “a plethora” of vacant posts in government should be filled as measures to deal with the unemployment challenge. — siyam@dispatch.co.za
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