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The SA Daily 12 February 2020

Youth unemployment still sky-high

Shireen Darmalingam

  • The labour market remains the SA economy’s Achilles’ heel, as jobs are still being shed, and, whatever job gains are made, can neither arrest nor offset high unemployment — especially of the youth whose unemployment is still very high. Q4:19 labour data shows that the SA unemployment rate registered in line with expectations; the Q4 unemployment rate at 29.1% was the same as in Q3:19.
  • Youth unemployment (those aged 15-24 years) has been rising since Q1:18, averaging 54.3%. In Q4:19, youth unemployment came in at 58.1%, from 58.2% in Q3:19. The unemployment rate for those aged 25-34 years also remains high, at 35.6%. Young people are struggling to enter the job market due to a clear skills mismatch in what is a high-technology tertiary sector. Spatial planning too affects their capacity for entering the job market.
  • SA’s employment weakness is a key risk to consumer income and spending and therefore to GDP and personal income tax payments. We forecast GDP growth of just 0.8% in 2020, from an estimated 0.3% in 2019. At such slow growth levels, unemployment is likely to remain elevated. The president’s State of the Nation Address tomorrow will be scrutinized for government’s plan to deal with SA’s high unemployment.

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