EDITORIAL: Never mind the numbers, focus on substance of jobs debate
We should also be asking about GDP numbers and whether they reflect the informal sector
The storm that followed Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie’s 10% unemployment claim has died down but the debates he opened up should not. One is about the official statistics — and here we should be asking questions not just about our unemployment numbers but also about our GDP numbers and whether they adequately reflect the informal sector. The other is about the informal sector itself, which needs more focused attention from policymakers and a change of mindset if SA is to close its wide employment gap.
SA’s official statisticians use globally benchmarked methods to survey and calculate the unemployment rate and while it is far from perfect, and the true rate could be less than 32%, it is unlikely it is 10%. It’s not that Capitec doesn’t have a high proportion of clients who earn their money in the informal sector rather than from formal jobs: just that it’s not legitimate to extrapolate the bank’s sample to the national level...
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