The Lure of Ill-Fitting Unemployment Statistics: How South Africa’s Discouraged Work Seekers Disappeared From the Unemployment Rate

Abstract

Unemployment refuses unambiguous definition. Its statistical representation is always open to contestation, especially where labour markets differ from the Western-industrial norm. Why do countries adopt international standards even if they may fit local conditions poorly? South Africa is an exemplary case to answer this question. When Apartheid ended in the early 1990s, South African statisticians embraced the new emancipatory spirit. Their broad unemployment indicator defied international conventions but did justice to the marginalised Black population, and to Black women in particular. Since then, however, South Africa has fallen in line with the much narrower definition of the International Labour Organization (ILO), in spite of widespread criticism. Why? We find that ILO standards were not forced upon South Africa. Instead, South African statisticians themselves embraced international standards to repel charges of arbitrary or politically motivated numbers. Counterintuitively, international standards become alluring precisely when doubts about statistics' fit with local conditions are the greatest.

Linking strategy implementation to financial performance and firm survival in women- owned small to medium enterprises

“…South Africa faces numerous economic, political and social challenges in its new democracy, of which the fundamental problem is that of massive and growing unemployment (Herrington et al, 2010;Ferreira, 2016;Alenda-Demoutiez & Mügge, 2020). The diverse nature of the South African economy requires special attention to work out solutions on women entrepreneurship since it can play an essential role in enhancing job creation and overall economic growth (Urban, 2010: Irene, 2017.…”

The national accounting paradox: how statistical norms corrode international economic data

“…They may be attacked because they obscure politically salient dimensions of a phenomenon. GDP has been vilified for its omission of unremunerated labour, mostly by women ( DeRock, 2019 ; Hoskyns and Rai, 2007 ; Waring, 1999 ) and of environmental destruction ( Fioramonti, 2013 ); unemployment measures can suffer from both racial and gender biases ( Alenda-Demoutiez and Mügge, 2019 ). Challenges also emerge as structural changes in economic life—say, the rise of derivatives in finance or expanding global trade—clash with the conceptual assumptions on which statistical measures had been built.…”

Scarce Health Human Resource Wastage: No work for South African Audiologists? A descriptive Survey Study.

“…Unemployment is a socio-political challenge worldwide and a major challenge in South Africa where the current national unemployment rate is the highest in 11 years [1][2] . Statistics South Africa (2019) reports a 29.1% official unemployment rate, which translates to approximately 6.7 million people who are able (skilled) to work and actively seeking jobs [3] . The expanded unemployment rate which would include those who are not actively seeking jobs [3] skilled or otherwise, is much higher and is up to 38.5% (10 million people) [2] .…”

“…Statistics South Africa (2019) reports a 29.1% official unemployment rate, which translates to approximately 6.7 million people who are able (skilled) to work and actively seeking jobs [3] . The expanded unemployment rate which would include those who are not actively seeking jobs [3] skilled or otherwise, is much higher and is up to 38.5% (10 million people) [2] . Unemployment rates are especially high (55.2%) amongst the youth aged 35 and younger [2] .…”

“…Currently, South Africa's labour market consists of formal and informal employment. Formal employment is defined as employment created by businesses or the government where an employee is hired under established working agreements [3,10] . In 2014, only 25% of South Africa's workforce were skilled workers with formal employment, this is including graduate health workers [11] .…”