Economist: 'Huge distortion' to SA's unemployment rate
A local economist says the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey must be taken with a pinch of salt.
The results show the unemployment rate in the second quarter of this year - dropped to 23,3% from 30,1% in the first three months of 2020.
Stats SA says fewer South Africans were actively seeking jobs because of the COVID-19 restrictions.
The data also reveals 2.2 million jobs were lost between April and June.
Economist, Dawie Roodt says the survey was done in the extraordinary times of a pandemic.
"I think it will be a big mistake if people compare this survey to other periods in South Africa because it's happening in a time of huge volatility and that the reason why we saw these massive swings.
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"I think we need to wait a number of months maybe even a number of quarters before we can get a better picture of the underlying unemployment trend and employment trend in South Africa."
Roodt explains how the COVID-19 lockdown brought down South Africa's unemployment rate.
"A huge increase in the people not actively looking for a job and not actually being discouraged in finding a job but people simply doing nothing.
"They are not part of the working force, they are not employed, they are not unemployed, its simply idol, simply not working. That's the reason why we see such a huge distortion in many of these numbers. So obviously the lockdown has had a huge impact."
