The South African job market is on shaky ground, as the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) warns of more job losses in the country.<\/p>\n
According to report by Business Day<\/a>, CCMA director Nerine Kahn has warned of more job losses in South Africa, after the group has seen a spike in cases brought before it over the past two years.<\/p>\n The CCMA is an independent statutory body, providing information on good labour practice.<\/p>\n The first quarter of 2015 saw CCMA cases jump by 40%, with 23,231 jobs at stake compared to the same period in 2014, Kahn said.<\/p>\n According to the report, while big-scale job losses in the mining and manufacturing industries have been widely reported, smaller-scale losses (of 10 people or fewer) have seen a\u00a0 jump.<\/p>\n According to trade union, Solidarity, 45,000 jobs in 58 companies have been affected by staff reduction processes in 2015, alone.<\/p>\n Of this, close to 20,000 have taken place in the mining industry, and almost 10,000 have affected the telecoms field.<\/p>\n Other groups including the South African Post Office, SAA and Eskom account for thousands more.<\/p>\n However, outside of these large-scale retrenchments, the CCMA has reportedly dealt with over 13,020 small-scale retrenchments in the past two years, with 2,175 in 2015 so far.<\/p>\n These figures paint a worrying picture for the South African labour market, where over 36% of South Africans are unemployed by the broader definition.<\/p>\n The broader definition of “unemployed” includes the 2.4 million \u2018discouraged job seekers\u2019, who want a job, but have given up looking for a job, in 2015.<\/p>\n Stats SA data for the second quarter of 2015 shows that there are 36 million working-age citizens, of which 15.7 million were employed.<\/p>\n 10,000 retrenchments in SA telecoms sector<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n White vs black unemployment in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nMore on unemployment<\/h3>\n