Johannesburg — Fifteen thousand people in Mpumalanga have lost their jobs in Mpumalanga in the last two months alone because of the financial recession, the provincial government has announced.

Presenting the 2009/2010 Mpumalanga provincial adjustment budget in Mbombela this week, finance MEC Pinky Phosa told the legislature that the economic crisis was reflected in unemployment in the province.

"In August this year, the MEC for economic development, environment and tourism, Jabu Mahlangu, reported that the provincial economy shed 39 000 jobs in the last three quarters of this year. Unfortunately the figure has increased to 54 000 as I am speaking to you. This means that 15 000 extra jobs have been lost in the last two months," said Phosa.

She said there were 304 000 unemployed people in the province, and 123 000 who have stopped looking for work.

"The official unemployment rate increased from 23.2% in the third quarter of 2008 to 25.7% in the third quarter of 2009," she said.

Phosa said another concern was the inflation rate in the province, which was higher than any other province in the country.

"Our provincial inflation rate of 7.2% is the highest among the nine provinces, and we are the only province exceeding 7%," Phosa said.

She said the province had to mitigate the negative impact of the economic downturn by collaborating with labour and civil society to ensure the economic crisis did not do more damage in communities.

"The government intervened by holding a provincial economic summit last month, where, among other things, it was agreed that we needed to fast-track financial support to small, medium and micro enterprises affected by the economic downturn," she said.

Phosa added that the government and organised labour also had to support rural development programmes and emerging farmers.

In an interview with African Eye News on Thursday, Mahlangu said he was optimistic that the situation would improve by the first quarter of 2010.

"Yes, we have been hit by the recession, I agree, but thanks to the 2010 Fifa World Cup the situation is not the worst in South Africa, compared to other countries. Billions of rands have been invested in the country after we won the bid to host the World Cup, so this has partly protected us from the impact of the recession. Imagine what the recession would have done to South Africa if we did not win the bid," said Mahlangu.

He said the provincial economy would contract by 2.9% this year, but it would recover by 2.1% in the first quarter of 2010.

"I hope that jobs will be created when the economy recovers next year," Mahlangu added. - African Eye News Service