The economy shed 48,066 jobs during March, with the informal sector being the only sector to create jobs, numbering 13,959 for the month. This is according to Adcorp Labour Economist Loane Sharp in the latest Adcorp Employment Index.

The biggest losses occurred in temporary (excluding agency) work, which lost 48,241 jobs during the month, and permanent work, which lost 13,784 jobs during the month. Significant job losses were observed in mining (-26.5%), construction (-12.7%), wholesale and retail trade (-6.9%), and transport and logistics - including communications (-11.0%). Only the public sector created jobs during the month, amounting to 16,000 in government and 4,000 in state-owned enterprises. Among occupations, only professional occupations created jobs during the month (10,000).

Sharp analyses South Africa's current platinum strike crisis within the context of South Africa's history of trade unionism, warning that deliberate action should be taken to avoid a repeat of history.
He states that mining sector unionisation, at 78% of the mining sector workforce, is an anomaly in South Africa. Average unionisation in the private sector as a whole is usually just 12%.

He analyses these figures referencing Professor Thomas Hazlett's account of the origin of racial segregation in South Africa - with specific reference to the gold rush of the late 1880s.  He argues that this scenario illustrates that when government policy is formulated based on the narrow special interests of trade unions, a political tragedy is inevitable.

In order to avoid this he states that platinum producers should immediately and unilaterally implement their best affordable offer to workers and use SAPS or armed and trained private security personnel to offer protection to workers who wish to return to work.

"A key player in the mining industry's R600 million damages claim against the Association of Construction and Mineworkers Union (Amcu) is an important first step and it should be immediately joined by their peers. The company is alleging that striking workers have caused damage to its property and loss of production due to intimidation of non-striking workers," Sharp says.

"Other companies should equally sue the CCMA and the Minister of Labour for failing in their legal duty to 'promote greater worker/employer co-operation and industrial peace.' The World Economic Forum now ranks South Africa's level of conflict in labour/employer relations as 148th out of 148 countries in the world."

If a settlement is reached, the platinum producers should refuse to pay striking workers a return-to-work bonus.

"The practice of paying strikers 'back pay for their time on strike makes a mockery of the 'no work/no pay' principle, and acts as a serious economic incentive to turn out on strike.

"In our current labour climate, trade unions deliberately raise wages to protect the vested interests of their (mainly older, skilled and experienced) members, for whom unskilled people (mainly youth) are a competitive threat. In the same way that white mineworkers tried to keep black mineworkers out of the mines, skilled black workers are now trying to keep unskilled black youth out of work. The political and economic history of South Africa in the 21st century will be the story of how this untenable struggle pans out."

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