Bell, Trevor : Unemployment in South Africa

There is not, to my knowledge, another comparable set of unemployment
estimates for all racial groups together for this period, which could be
used in an assessment of Simkins' results. Other notable contributions on
the measurement of unemployment in South Africa on a year by year basis
over the past two decades appear to have focussed mainly on non-White
unemployment. Amongst the most notable of these are the estimates of Lieb
Loots whose most recent results covering Africans, Asians and Coloureds
are presented in Table 3. Loots' estimates also reflect a persistent
tendency for the unemployment rate to increase from about 1974. Thus the
most recent estimates of both Simkins and Loota tend to confirm the
tendency revealed by their own earlier work, as well as studies by Sadie
(1976) and van der Merwe (1976)').
That there is in operation a persistent tendency for the unemployment rate
to rise, which is likely to continue into the future, is also suggested by
a recent Human Sciences Research Council study in which it was estimated
that in the period 1980 - 1985 the labour force would increase at a rate
of 290 000 per annum compared with an estimated rate of growth of the
demand for labour of 134 000 new jobs per annum, based on a rate of grovth
of GDP of some 4.5 per cent per annum2). Furthermore, since then the
Government has issued a White Paper on the problem in which it states that
the "fact that uneqloyment might tend to increase over the longer term,
is --- cause for great concern on the part of the Government, which
believes that dealing with these problems is a matter of high
priority").
1) Bromberger (1978 : 17). after surveying the work done up to that date,
states that "All workers agree on a rising trend in the 1970s".
Moreover Loots (1980 : 59) predicted that there would be little future
improvement, and in his 1982 study (p. 32) seems to accept the rising
trend quite unequivocally.
2) Terblanche, Jacobs and van Pletzen (1983 : 2-4). It should be noted
that their estimated average annual increase in the labour force of
290 000 between 1980 and 1985 suggests that Simkins' (1982:6)
estimated increase of 220 000 for 1981 (an increase of only 2.4 per
cent over 1980) is by no means excessive; and his employment increase
of 142 000 for 1981 exceeds the estimated annual increase of 134 000
for 1980-1985.
3) Government White Paper (1984 : 2).