The latest employment data from Stats SA shows that South Africa’s domestic workers are still struggling to get their jobs back as the country’s households continue to cut employment to save money where they can.

The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the second quarter of 2023 showed a slight improvement in the number of domestic workers employed in the country, with households and businesses now employing 844,000 workers, up by 47,000 from 797,000 in the first quarter of the year.

While the 5.9% quarter-on-quarter growth is good news for the sector, it is still down 1.6% from the same period in 2022, where 856,000 domestic workers were employed. That means there are 14,000 fewer domestic worker jobs in 2023 versus 2022.

Making matters worse is the fact the current employment levels are still down significantly from the pre-Covid-19 period, where around 1 million domestic workers were employed.

The latest data implies that there are still over 200,000 domestic workers who lost their jobs over the last three years, with no indication that the sector is on the path to recovery.

The main drive behind the losses is evident in Stats SA’s data. Across all industries, private households are the only employers that have seen a year-on-year decline in employment, with 30,000 jobs lost in the sector over the last year.

Banking group FNB cautioned that the Q2 unemployment data shows that mounting cost-of-living pressures are weighing on households.

This has also be reflected in several surveys and insight reports over the past few months, which have indicated that South Africa’s middle class in particular are coming under severe strain and ‘cutting the fat’ to make it through the month.

When looking for ‘luxuries’ to cut out to save money, households tend to let go of domestic help – opting to do the cleaning and washing themselves.

This trend has also been exacerbated by government-led changes, such as a much higher-than-inflation increase to the national minimum wage, as well as adding more onerous administrative requirements to households employing domestic workers in the country through new compensation fund laws.