{"id":420736,"date":"2020-07-29T11:16:02","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T09:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=420736"},"modified":"2020-07-29T11:16:02","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T09:16:02","slug":"south-africas-take-home-pay-shock-heres-how-much-money-people-took-home-in-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/420736\/south-africas-take-home-pay-shock-heres-how-much-money-people-took-home-in-june\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s take-home pay shock – here’s how much money people took home in June"},"content":{"rendered":"

The number of monthly salaries paid in June 2020 showed an annual decline of 20.7%, affecting a fifth of employees\u2019 salaries, new data from the monthly BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index (BTPI) shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen this massive slide in salaries processed by BankservAfrica and through the National Payment System in recent months,” said Shergeran Naidoo, head of stakeholder engagements at BankservAfrica.<\/p>\n

“However, the figure in June is most reflective of the heavy toll that the current Covid-19 crisis has placed on employers and employees who are faced with major financial distress under the current circumstances.”.<\/p>\n

The majority of payments recorded in the BTPI feature large corporates and a fair number of medium-sized firms that are served by payroll service providers and firm-owned payroll administrators.<\/p>\n

As such, this recent decrease may not reflect the full impact of salary declines on small firms.<\/p>\n

However, with the BTPI over representing civil servant and state-owned entity payrolls, it becomes evident that the reduced salary numbers are most likely to be in the private sector.<\/p>\n

This is supported by data showing an estimated 30% of the BTPI monthly equivalent payments are paid by the broader government sector compared to 21% shown in Stats SA\u2019s Quarterly Employment Survey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe surmise that a fifth of employees in the private sector did not receive a salary in June 2020<\/strong>. The 20.7% decline could be the result of job losses or it could due to a temporary pause in payments,\u201d said Mike Sch\u00fcssler, chief economist at economists.co.za.<\/p>\n

He cautioned that while the BTPI numbers cannot be used as a measure of the unemployment rate, the salary data provides a quick and effective indication of the employment statistics on the ground through the number of salaries paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn June, the actual average take-home pay declined by 0.5% in real terms. This could be the result of instances where salaries may have increased or that the personal income tax provided relief above the current inflation rate,\u201d said Naidoo.<\/p>\n

With tax relief of over 5%, a 1.7% nominal increase in actual salaries is extremely low. Moreover usually when inflation declines, as it currently has, real take-home pay increases even with low salary adjustments, said Sch\u00fcssler.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs many expected, daily\/casual workers (-35.2%) followed by weekly workers (-17.1%) have been hurt the most. We are seeing a decline in monthly salaries of -9.1%,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

BankservAfrica noted that the seasonally adjusted nominal take-home salary in June was R15,869<\/strong>, which was 1.7% higher than in June 2019. The real monthly take-home pay was R14,197<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real take-home pay declined by 0.5% on an estimated inflation rate of 2.4% in June 2020,\u201d said Naidoo.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the BankservAfrica Private Pension Index (BPPI) declined for the second consecutive month with a fall of 0.3% to reach R7,355<\/strong> in real terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cReal pensions could be declining as a result of the interest rate reductions and the pressure that other assets have come under,\u201d said Sch\u00fcssler.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe numbers are extremely concerning and will have a profound impact on the South African economy. The knock-on impact is also likely to be larger than many have estimated. Lower confidence levels and growing concerns over job security will have a severe impact on retail sales and consumer spending,\u201d Sch\u00fcssler said.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: A look at South Africa beyond 2020<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa recorded a deep fall in private sector salaries in June 2020, new data shows. Over a quarter of take-home pay numbers were not present in the monthly index.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":390529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[1976,26],"class_list":["post-420736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-bankservafrica","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420736"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420760,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420736\/revisions\/420760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}