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We take a look at South Africa's province's unemployment rates as well as the unemployment rate of various metropolitan areas within the various provinces. The Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) as published by Statistics South Africa recently started published more dis aggregated data on the unemployment rate, and this is where we get the data from.
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Unemployment Rates per province
Before looking at the unemployment rates of various metro's within South Africa, we will take a look at the unemployment rate per province over time first. The line graph below shows the unemployment rate per province per quarter from quarter 1:2015 to quarter 2:2017. What is clear from the line graph below is that all South Africa's provinces have a relatively high unemployment rate, with most of the provinces having an unemployment rate above 20%. Essentially one out of every five eligible for work citizens in South Africa is without a job. Sadly for South Africans the unemployment story is not getting better, in fact it is getting worse.
The official unemployment rate for South Africa, as at end of quarter 2, 2017 is 27.7%. Essentially one out of every 4 people eligible and willing to work in South Africa is without a job. And continued efforts by government to reduce the unemployment rate has failed miserably. and state capture seems to be doing even more damage to an already fragile South African economy. And this is largely thanks to extremely weak economic growth. South Africa's economy is growing slower than it's population, and what this means is that more and more people are entering the job market and the economy is not growing fast enough to absorb the new entrants into the job market.
This is a unsustainable situation and at some point something is going to give. Either social uprisings demanding drastic politcal changes or significant shifts in economic policy (or the implementation thereof) will have to take place in order to address the current unemployment situation.
High levels of unemployment is fueling crime in South Africa too as the unemployed is turning towards crime to look after themselves and their families and loved ones. Below the unemployment rate per province up to Q2:2017.
The official unemployment rate for South Africa, as at end of quarter 2, 2017 is 27.7%. Essentially one out of every 4 people eligible and willing to work in South Africa is without a job. And continued efforts by government to reduce the unemployment rate has failed miserably. and state capture seems to be doing even more damage to an already fragile South African economy. And this is largely thanks to extremely weak economic growth. South Africa's economy is growing slower than it's population, and what this means is that more and more people are entering the job market and the economy is not growing fast enough to absorb the new entrants into the job market.
This is a unsustainable situation and at some point something is going to give. Either social uprisings demanding drastic politcal changes or significant shifts in economic policy (or the implementation thereof) will have to take place in order to address the current unemployment situation.
High levels of unemployment is fueling crime in South Africa too as the unemployed is turning towards crime to look after themselves and their families and loved ones. Below the unemployment rate per province up to Q2:2017.
While Gauteng is South Africa's main economic hub, massive migration into the province is leading to high levels of unemployment experienced in Gauteng. Surprisingly one of the poorer and smaller provinces in terms of economic size, Limpopo, has the 2nd lowest unemployment rate, with the Western Cape just beating Limpopo as the province with the lowest unemployment rate. All other provinces have significantly higher unemployment rates than the Western Cape and Limpopo.
The graphic below takes a look at the unemployment rate per metropolitan area (where one is available as calculated by Statistics South Africa).
Unemployment Rate per Metropolitan Area
The line graph above shows the unemployment rate per quarter from Q1: 2015 to Q2:2017 per metropolitan area. Interesting to note that the eThekweni municipality has the lowest unemployment rate, while Manguang (Free State) and Nelson Mandela Bay (Eastern Cape) is fighting it out for the metro with the highest official unemployment rate with it both sitting at around 34.4%. Nelson Mandela Bay saw a sharp increase in their unemployment rate.
In a previous write up of the unemployment per metro we wrote "A surprise is the fact that Buffalo City (East London), in Eastern Cape has a lower unemployment rate than that of Nelson Mandela Bay." Nelson Mandela Bay fought back after this comment, but after the latest set of results Nelson Mandela Bay is now worse off again than Buffalo City. Wonder if this can be attributed to General Motors (GM) leaving the country, as they had a strong presence in the area?
With Statistics South Africa having recently started publishing unemployment data on metropolitan level, we would be able to more accurately measure if political parties will/can make good on their promise of reducing unemployment in the metros that they govern. So far DA metro's are not exactly covering themselves in glory.
Interesting times ahead. As more detailed data becomes available (in more regular intervals) with time, it becomes easier to not only track the performance of political parties in various metros but to report on them too. The DA has been talking the talk, now its time to walk the walk. And statistics and numbers will be there to measure their performance every step of the way.
While we do not think politcal parties can influence the short term unemployment rate of metros significantly we do believe proper policies and planning can set the long term employment/unemployment trajectories on a different path. So while political parties will use the numbers to sling mud and brag we caution against using the numbers published over such a short period of time. A lot more data points is required before any party can definitively state they addressed the unemployment levels in a particular province or metro.
Interesting times ahead. As more detailed data becomes available (in more regular intervals) with time, it becomes easier to not only track the performance of political parties in various metros but to report on them too. The DA has been talking the talk, now its time to walk the walk. And statistics and numbers will be there to measure their performance every step of the way.
While we do not think politcal parties can influence the short term unemployment rate of metros significantly we do believe proper policies and planning can set the long term employment/unemployment trajectories on a different path. So while political parties will use the numbers to sling mud and brag we caution against using the numbers published over such a short period of time. A lot more data points is required before any party can definitively state they addressed the unemployment levels in a particular province or metro.