The Western Cape, which contributes less than 15% to the national economy, created 40.7% of all new jobs in the past year.
The Stats SA Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the period April to June 2018 which was released today, indicates that 77 000 new jobs were created in the Western Cape over the past year-representing a 3.2% increase.
The Western Cape also recorded an expanded unemployment rate of 23.2%, almost 14 percentage points less than the national average of 37.2%.
Alan Winde, MEC for Economic Opportunities says: “The Western Cape continues to be a major contributor to employment in the country, and was responsible for creating 77 000 of the 188 000 new jobs in South Africa in the past year-more than any other province.”
Despite this news, the province recorded a large drop of 50 000 jobs on a quarterly basis between the first quarter of the year, and the second.
More than half of these (27 000) were lost in the agricultural sector which has been battling through one of the worst droughts on record.
The sector is also cyclical and seasonal harvest time job losses would have been recorded in this quarter.
Year on year, jobs in the province’s agriculture sector showed some growth – with 2000 new jobs created over the period.
Winde says: “The drought has had a significant impact on the agricultural industry and the quarterly employment statistics in this sector reflect that. However, we are pleased that year on year, we have not seen any negative impact in this sector which is responsible for a large proportion of rural job creation.
We have experienced good rains in some parts of the province and believe that this will reflect positively in the agricultural sector’s growth in coming quarters.”
The community and social services sector also recorded a decline of 34 000 jobs.