One-quarter of unemployed people had been seeking work for more than five years and a further 40% had been out of work for at least a year, the latest ‘South African Survey’, released by the South African Institute for Race Relations (SAIRR) on Wednesday, revealed.
The SAIRR said that, according to data from Statistics South Africa, a total of 4.5-million people were classified as officially unemployed as they were available, wanted to work and had actively been looking for a job.
“We have very high long-term unemployment levels according to the international definition – the average among countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is 32% of total unemployment, which is far lower than the 68% observed in South Africa,” explained SAIRR researcher Lucy Holborn.
She added that the likelihood of finding work after being out of the workplace for longer than five years was slim in a market in need of experienced and skilled labour, but saturated with less skilled and unskilled workers.
“In addition, these figures do not take into account those who would like to work but have stopped actively looking for employment, as they have given up hope of finding a job,” Holborn said.
According to this expanded definition of unemployment, an additional 3.2-million people were without jobs.
Holborn said this suggested that there may be a staggeringly large number of people who were considered unemployable.
“Therefore, any solution to our unemployment problem will need to address educational and skills inadequacies to provide a better match between what is required by the labour market and the pool of people supplying it,” she noted.
In the meantime, relaxing labour regulation to reduce the cost and risk of hiring people could help to dent levels of unemployment that had been persistently high for over a decade, Holborn suggested.