Bad news for salaries in South Africa

The latest Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES) from Stats SA show that the average formal, non-agricultural salary in South Africa declined 0.1% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous quarter.
The average salary paid was recorded at R26,791, down from the R26,894 recorded for the fourth quarter of 2023.
More positively, the average was 4.6% higher year on year, up from the R25,602 recorded in Q1 2023. However, this growth is lower than inflation—averaging around 5%—so the average had declined in real terms.
Notably, the first quarter of the year typically shows a small decline in average earnings, switching from the seasonality of more jobs and more pay over the fourth quarter festive period.


Gross earnings paid to employees decreased by R35.1 billion or -3,5% from R993 billion in December 2023 to R957.9 billion in March 2024.
This was due to decreases in the following industries: trade, community services, manufacturing, construction, transport, electricity and mining.
However, business services reported an increase of R9.3 billion.
Year-on-year gross earnings increased by R43.5 billion or 4.8% between March 2023 and March 2024.

Looking across sectors though, average monthly earnings dropped in the Business Services sector quarter-on-quarter, despite the increased spend.
Year-on-year, only the Business Services, Construction, Electricity and Transport sectors outstripped inflation.

Employment
According to Stats SA, total employment decreased by 67,000 or -0.6% quarter-on-quarter, from 10,731,000 in December 2023 to 10,664,000 in March 2024.
This was due to decreases in the following industries:
- Trade (-57,000 or -2.4%)
- community services (-18,000 or -0.6%)
- business services (-4,000 or -0.2%)
- mining (-3,000 or -0.6%)
The electricity industry showed no change. However, there were increases in the following industries:
- manufacturing (12,000 or 0.9%)
- transport (2,000 or 0.4%)
- construction (1,000 or 0.2%)
Total employment decreased by 74,000 or -0.7% year-on-year between March 2023 and March 2024.
Full-time employment decreased by 29,000 or -0.3% quarter-on-quarter and by 16,000 or -0.2% year-on-year between March 2023 and March 2024.
Part-time employment decreased by 38,000 or -3.1% quarter-on-quarter and by 58,000 or -4.7% year-on-year between March 2023 and March 2024.
This broadly aligns with the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), which showed that the number of unemployed persons increased by 330,000 to 8.2 million over the same quarter, pushing the unemployment rate up to 32.9%.
The QES data specifically reflects the number of people receiving formal salaries, while the QLFS tracks wider employment and unemployment trends.
Read: How much ‘bin pickers’ make in South Africa – with some earning more than the national average