By: Lungisa Somtombo
Many companies were hit hard by the pandemic and had to close down businesses which resulted in the rise of the unemployed rate.
According to Statistics South Africa, the Covid-19 Pandemic has affected the rate of unemployment in South Africa.
Statistics South Africa published the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) in February which stated that the unemployment rate increased to 32.5% and left 7.2 million people jobless in the fourth quarter of 2020. This is the highest since the start of the QLFS in 2008.
According to Stats SA, one million people joined the workforce and there were 333 000 job gains, however, the number of job losses was greater than that of employment.
As we enter the third wave of the Coronavirus pandemic people continue to lose jobs while others are still job hunting after losing their jobs in the first wave during level 5 lockdown.
President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Workers Day celebration said South African workers have been affected negatively by the pandemic in terms of loss of income, where their families’ livelihoods were severely affected.
Siyabonga Rumbu from Mdantsane who worked in the Transport industry recently got retrenched when the company he was working for was restructuring because it had been suffering financially even before the pandemic, the pandemic was the last blow.
He said job hunting is still the same old sending CVs online or going to companies to hand-deliver and hope that there’ll be positive results.
“Sometimes I just wish to get a response, even if it is negative so that I can be motivated to hunt further and just to keep myself alive,” said Rumbu.
Further, he said if he stays unemployed for long and he doesn’t revisit his short-mid and long-term goals it could have negative implications on his family.
However, for now, he needs to be firm, calculative, disciplined and trusts that God and his ancestors won’t leave him.