South Africa: New-Look Survey Shakes Up Jobless Data
Business Day (Johannesburg)
23 June 2008
Posted to the web 23 June 2008
Mariam Isa
Johannesburg
A RADICAL overhaul of the way the labour force is surveyed is likely to have a "serious impact" on existing employment data, which estimate the country's jobless rate at 23%.
A report from Statistics SA due today says that more than 300 permanent staff have been hired to run its revamped Labour Force Survey (LFS), which will be published quarterly rather than twice a year.
Questions have been simplified, reduced and also translated into the 10 official languages other than English in a bid to make responses more accurate, says the report, obtained by Business Day.
The new survey, first due in August, will also cut the 50% "proxy" response rate of the existing LFS , which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said is too high. Proxy responses come from people close to intended respondents.
"We will be using permanent staff instead of contract workers -- and the proxy rate is going to go down," said Yandiswa Mbetsheni, head of household labour data at Stats SA. "These things alone will have a very serious impact on the data."
Mbetsheni declined to be drawn on whether the changes would push SA's employment rate up or down.
Analysts say that the pace of job creation has lagged behind the economy's rapid growth rate of about 5% over each of the past four years.
There have also been glaring discrepancies between data from the existing LFS -- based on household responses -- and the Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES), drawn from companies and excluding the farming and informal sectors.
Econometrix director Azar Jammine said: "One of the big problems has been the big divergence between the QES, which is a proxy for formal sector employment and the LFS.
"Markets will focus on whether growth in employment has been faster, but I would be very sceptical of a survey which shows far more job creation."
SA's overall jobless rate has fallen from a peak of 31,2% in 2003 to 23% last September, its lowest since records began, according to the latest LFS.
But job creation grew just 2,3% in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the last QES -- too slow to meet official goals of halving unemployment by 2014.
A team of international experts advising SA on how to boost its growth rate has said the biggest constraint is the fact that only 42,6% of the working-age population are employed.
Lack of skills and education are seen as the main problems, which will take time to address.
Mbetsheni said Stats SA would release the new LFS for the first and second quarters on August 28, along with one in the old format for March.
The organisation would carry on publishing the revamped LFS four weeks after the end of every quarter, compared with a six-month lag for the current biannual survey. It said the changes to the LFS, which covers more than 30800 "dwellings", were a response to recommendations from IMF consultants in June 2005. These included more relevant questions on informal sector employment, which was seen as surprisingly low, and making job-search questions "less confrontational", Mbetsheni said.
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Southern Africa
Economy, Business and Finance
Labour
South Africa
That could have an effect on the "expanded" jobless rate, which includes people who have stopped looking for work. It has also declined to 35,8% from more than 40% a few years ago.
The new LFS surveys will once a year publish data on people who say they are "underemployed", meaning they would like to work more.
Stats SA presents its revised format for the LFS to the IMF tomorrow, when it will publish its QES for March, which may show if January' s power outages in January prompted companies to shed jobs.
23 June 2008
Posted to the web 23 June 2008
Mariam Isa
Johannesburg
A RADICAL overhaul of the way the labour force is surveyed is likely to have a "serious impact" on existing employment data, which estimate the country's jobless rate at 23%.
A report from Statistics SA due today says that more than 300 permanent staff have been hired to run its revamped Labour Force Survey (LFS), which will be published quarterly rather than twice a year.
Questions have been simplified, reduced and also translated into the 10 official languages other than English in a bid to make responses more accurate, says the report, obtained by Business Day.
The new survey, first due in August, will also cut the 50% "proxy" response rate of the existing LFS , which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said is too high. Proxy responses come from people close to intended respondents.
"We will be using permanent staff instead of contract workers -- and the proxy rate is going to go down," said Yandiswa Mbetsheni, head of household labour data at Stats SA. "These things alone will have a very serious impact on the data."
Mbetsheni declined to be drawn on whether the changes would push SA's employment rate up or down.
Analysts say that the pace of job creation has lagged behind the economy's rapid growth rate of about 5% over each of the past four years.
There have also been glaring discrepancies between data from the existing LFS -- based on household responses -- and the Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES), drawn from companies and excluding the farming and informal sectors.
Econometrix director Azar Jammine said: "One of the big problems has been the big divergence between the QES, which is a proxy for formal sector employment and the LFS.
"Markets will focus on whether growth in employment has been faster, but I would be very sceptical of a survey which shows far more job creation."
SA's overall jobless rate has fallen from a peak of 31,2% in 2003 to 23% last September, its lowest since records began, according to the latest LFS.
But job creation grew just 2,3% in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the last QES -- too slow to meet official goals of halving unemployment by 2014.
A team of international experts advising SA on how to boost its growth rate has said the biggest constraint is the fact that only 42,6% of the working-age population are employed.
Lack of skills and education are seen as the main problems, which will take time to address.
Mbetsheni said Stats SA would release the new LFS for the first and second quarters on August 28, along with one in the old format for March.
The organisation would carry on publishing the revamped LFS four weeks after the end of every quarter, compared with a six-month lag for the current biannual survey. It said the changes to the LFS, which covers more than 30800 "dwellings", were a response to recommendations from IMF consultants in June 2005. These included more relevant questions on informal sector employment, which was seen as surprisingly low, and making job-search questions "less confrontational", Mbetsheni said.
Relevant Links
Southern Africa
Economy, Business and Finance
Labour
South Africa
That could have an effect on the "expanded" jobless rate, which includes people who have stopped looking for work. It has also declined to 35,8% from more than 40% a few years ago.
The new LFS surveys will once a year publish data on people who say they are "underemployed", meaning they would like to work more.
Stats SA presents its revised format for the LFS to the IMF tomorrow, when it will publish its QES for March, which may show if January' s power outages in January prompted companies to shed jobs.
Labels: South Africa, unemployment
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