Photo: Annelie Coleman
The growing importance of the agriculture sector as an employer in South Africa has again been reiterated by Statistics South Africa’s (Stats SA) employment figures for the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2021.
This was according to Lebogang Sethusa, labour and employment specialist at Agri SA, who was commenting on Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the final quarter of last year.
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The data showed that employment in the sector had increased by 38 000 jobs quarter-on- quarter, from 829 000 jobs in in the third quarter (Q3) to 868 000 in Q4.
“While various provinces showed a growth in employment numbers for agriculture, some 19 000 jobs were shed in the Western Cape, 6 000 in the Free State and 9 000 in Limpopo,” he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Gernie Botha, Free State Agriculture’s (FSA) operations manager, told Farmer’s Weekly that the drop in agricultural employment opportunities in the province had come as no surprise.
A recent survey carried out among FSA members showed that farmers were increasingly inclined to make use of alternatives to manual labour, such as agricultural machinery.
“According to the majority of the respondents, they were forced to reduce employment costs, especially after the recent 16% hike in the [national] minimum wage. These decisions are not taken lightly, but our members are businesspeople, who run their farming concerns strictly along business principles,” he said.
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Agri SA did, however, express concern about the fact that the skilled agricultural employment figures had not recovered to the level of Q4 in 2020. The Q4 2021 result showed that 68 000 people were employed in skilled agricultural work for that period, compared with 85 000 in the same quarter in 2020.
This represented a 20,6% decrease year-on-year. However, skilled employment had increased from 63 000 jobs in Q3 2021 to 68 000 jobs in Q4 2021.
“While the quarter-on-quarter results do show a level of recovery [compared with Q3 2021], there is still much ground to be made up. It remains a concern that this drop in skilled employees [actually] represents a brain drain for the sector,” Sethusa said.
