Posted on 03/01/2002 6:54:52 AM PST by wwcc
THE unemployment rate in South Africa is worse than official statistics suggest, while wage gaps between races and within race groups have probably increased since 1994, according to a Norwegian survey released this week.
The Mesebetsi Labour Force Survey was completed this week by the Norwegian Institute for Applied Social Science (Fafo) and funded by South Africa's Department of Labour and the Norwegian Development Agency (Norad).
The survey uses an expanded definition of unemployment, which includes those seeking work as well as those who have given up looking. It finds a total of 45% of the population is unemployed.
The report also finds that only 1% of current job seekers are receiving training as a means of finding work; that a quarter of the currently unemployed report their last job ended because of retrenchment or business closures; and that half the job- seekers have never worked before.
Women, people in "non-urban" areas and Africans have higher unemployment rates than the average. The most vulnerable are African women in the 15- to 30-year age group living in non-urban areas.
Liv Torres, who managed the survey for Fafo, says that while the informal sector was captured in the survey, it was difficult to measure.
"We need to get to the point of a common understanding of what decent work is.
"Often in the informal sector it is a struggle for survival that doesn't really contribute to the economy."
What struck Torres most was "the wage gap and inequities" in South Africa.
"In fact it seems not to have changed or could be even higher than in 1994."
More than 50 000 people in more than 10 000 households were used to ascertain trends on racial differences in income, education and basic conditions of employment.
The report shows vast racial inequalities in terms of income.
Africans earn on average R1 638 a month, coloured people R1 929, Indians R3 799 and whites earn R6 131. Among the poorest 20% of income-earners, whites earn more than five times that of Africans. In addition, the poorest white earners still earn substantially more, with R1 176 a month, than Africans, with R525.
However, the survey highlights significant disparities within racial groups.
Among Africans, the top income-earners earn 21 times that of the lowest income earners. Among whites, the top earners earn 12 times that of the lowest income earners.
The implication, the report says, "is that while there might have been improvements in the incomes of higher-earning Africans, most African employees have not benefited to the same extent".
The Congress of South African Trade Unions said the survey showed the government's growth, employment and redistribution strategy (Gear) "has achieved none of its objectives", and that "Cosatu was right to call unemployment a national crisis".
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