Financial Mail columnist Wandile Sihlobo writes that SA’s agricultural sector has had a rough start to the year, characterised by El Niño-induced drought, but the employment conditions remain encouraging.
Data recently released by Stats SA shows that employment in primary agriculture lifted by 6% year-on-year to 941,000 in the first quarter of 2024. This was also up 2% from the last quarter of 2023. Sihlobo points out that the significant drought damage was concentrated on the summer grains and oilseed regions, not across all agricultural subsectors, which somewhat explains the resilience in job data. Another consideration is that there could be a lag in fully accounting for agriculture's financial pressures resulting from the drought and the effect on employment afterwards. Nonetheless: “We can observe from the current data that jobs generally increased across most subsectors of agriculture in the first quarter compared with the corresponding period last year. The decline in employment was only in the production of organic fertilisers, fishing, and fish hatcheries.” From a regional perspective, the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North West, Gauteng, and Mpumalanga were behind the annual uptick in agricultural employment. These provinces broadly comprised various agricultural commodities or value chains. Surprisingly, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo were among the provinces that recorded a mild decline in employment in the first quarter compared to 2023.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Wandile Sihlobo at Financial Mail
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