Little desire to work in SA

Government hand-outs, trade unions and affirmative action have combined to generate a marked negative effect on the desire to work in South Africa.

This is according to information obtained from JSE-listed human capital management group, Adcorp, which released its latest employment index yesterday.

In an analysis appended to the monthly index, the company's labour market analyst. Loane Sharp, said that as many as 10.2 million South Africans - one in five - received grants in one form or another, amounting to 14.9 million grants or 1.5 grants per recipient, yielding average annual transfers of R9539 per beneficiary.

"A total of 43.3% of unemployed people are willing to accept a job, if offered, when they are supported by their own savings, whereas 11.1% of people will accept a job if they are supported by social grants and welfare," Sharp added.

He said unemployed people were also more likely to remain out of work if they were supported by social grants and welfare.

"The average duration of unemployment is 16 months for people who don't receive grants, compared to 21 months for people who do."

This month's index also demonstrated how unions typically discouraged work by increasing their members' demand for leisure time and sociable working hours, since the desire for leisure rises with income, Sharp noted.

"Only 9.3% of unionised workers, as opposed to 17.8% of non-unionised workers, are prepared to work additional hours in a given week. Of those who will do so, unionised workers are prepared to work an additional 0.9 hours a week compared to 2.4 hours a week for non-unionised workers."

Sharp said the latest employment index stressed that affirmative action "has exceedingly poor consequences" for the desire to work in South Africa, with highly qualified whites substantially less likely than blacks to find a job within 12 months of initiating a job search.

"For job-seekers with a tertiary qualification, blacks are 34% more likely to find work than whites."

Sharp said this had contributed to the higher percentage of whites operating their own businesses.

"Business owners' share of national income increased from 39.9% in 1995 to 47.2% in 2011, while employees' share has correspondingly declined."

Meanwhile, Sharp also noted that the university system had failed to produce graduates in business-oriented fields.

There are currently nearly 600000 unemployed university graduates in South Africa, mostly in the arts, humanities and social sciences, whereas the private sector has more than 800000 vacancies in management, engineering, law, finance, accounting and medicine. - I-Net Bridge