SA's jobs bloodbath

You could fill a city with the South Africans who have given up on looking for a job.

And the size of that city has nearly doubled since President Jacob Zuma's government came to power in 2009, numbers released by Statistics SA yesterday show.

The number of people with a job has increased by about 1.5million over the past five years - but the population of working-age people has grown by nearly 4.2million, according to the StatsSA quarterly labour force survey.

The official unemployment rate has risen from 23.5% to 25.2% in that period, showing that not enough jobs were created to absorb the new entrants to the labour market.

Soon after taking office Zuma promised that 500000 "job opportunities" would be generated during his first year in office and another 4million by this year.

StatsSA figures show that in the past three months 122000 jobs were lost and another 155000 people gave up looking for work.

"Though South Africa has become used to a very high unemployment rate, it is nowhere near normal and is a serious problem," said SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry analyst Pietman Roos.

The number of discouraged work-seekers has grown by 1.14million since the first quarter of 2009 to a staggering 2.36million.

And more jobs are in jeopardy as the longest strike in the history of platinum mining drags on.

Zuma hit out at the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union yesterday, calling the union irresponsible, Reuters reported.

"The union leaders have a responsibility . to ensure that workers are protected so they don't lose their jobs," Zuma said. "You can't get into a strike at the end [of which] the workers lose their jobs."

Roos says the Amcu workers were "effectively unemployed" during the strike because they received no pay or benefits.

"Add the 80000 strikers in the platinum sector and the official unemployment figure for the first-quarter increases to 25.6% from 25.2%, which gives you an idea of the huge scale of unemployment."