More South Africans are finding part-time employment.

• More people in South Africa have found part-time employment in recent years.
• The same trend in full-time employment has not been observed.
• One expert explained that many businesses turn to temporary or part-time employment when business confidence is weak.
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While unemployment has remained stubbornly high in South Africa, more people have found part-time work in the country during recent years.

Between June 2018 and 2023, there has been a 27.8% increase in the number of people who are employed part-time. A lot of this growth came in the last year, where 150 000 found part-time employment between June 2022 and 2023. This represents a 13.2% increase in part-time employment.

This data was shared in the Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES) publication released by Stats SA on 28 September. The QES provides insight into employment trends in the formal sector of the South African economy. 

The data in the report excludes workers in the agricultural sector and is based on surveys from 20 000 organisations. 

Part-time employees are classified by the survey as being permanent, temporary or casual employees who work less than 40 hours in a week.

In June of 2018, there were just over a million people who worked part-time in South Africa. In June 2023, the latest period for which data has been made available, there were 1.28 million people employed part-time.

The same growth has not been observed in full-time employment. Over the same time period, the number of full-time employed people in the country has remained roughly the same. There were just over 10 million full-time employed people as captured by the June QES.

Andrew Donaldson, a research assistant at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, and the former deputy director-general of the National Treasury, said that the growth in part-time employment was indicative of a lack of business confidence and uncertainty about the future.

“It’s a familiar pattern. When the economy is in trouble and the future is uncertain, and there is growth, but businesses don’t have that much confidence in it, then businesses are much more likely to switch to temporary or part-time employment,” he said.

He added that taking part-time or temporary employees on was a way for businesses to hedge their bets on the future, as it required less commitment.

“This is a sign that the recovery is there, but it’s weak,” he explained.

Donaldson said that the uncertainty created by events like the Covid-19 pandemic and the KwaZulu-Natal riots may still be denting business confidence.

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Pointing to the more recent growth in part-time employment, Donaldson explained that the recovery of the services industry has contributed strongly to the growth in part-time employment. 

Institutions, like hotels and restaurants, were bouncing back from their pandemic-induced slump and were more likely than other industries to take on part-time workers.

Gross wages

The QES also provides insight into the change in gross wages of employees in the formal sector.

Gross wages between June of 2022 and 2023 grew by 5.4%.

This was quite a strong signal of the growth of the economy, Donaldson said.

When adjusted for inflation, there was very little or no growth in real wages, but the fact that wages did not decrease was a strong growth indicator.

He added that, when employment and real wages were compared to 2019, it was clear that the country still hadn’t really recovered from the impact of Covid-19 as far as employment and wages were concerned.

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