At Airport Valley, a 29-year-old man walks across the train tracks carrying a sheet of rusty roof sheeting.
He struggles to hold on to the metal sheet as the wind almost blows him over, but it is his best chance of earning some money this week.
Anathi Ngiva, originally of Mount Fletcher, has not had a proper job since June 2020, and he is not alone.
Nelson Mandela Bay is the metro with the highest unemployment rate in SA, while the Eastern Cape hit the bottom of the provincial unemployment statistics.
Close to 40% of the Bay’s workforce is jobless and many residents’ hunt for employment has left them discouraged and hopeless.
Even with tertiary qualifications, jobs are hard to come by and many are left to scrape a living together by whatever means necessary.
“There was no work back home, so I moved here hoping to find education or a job,” Ngiva said.
“Instead, I have to look for odd jobs every day just to put food in my mouth.”
His home comprises nailed-together boards and sheets, or whatever material he can find.
Next to the mattress on the floor stands an upside-down paint bucket. On top is an oil lamp and an ashtray.
One wall is lined with planks of varying sizes and some tools — a pickaxe, measuring tape and saw.
“I am a carpenter by trade, but I will do anything for work. I clean yards, lay down paving, anything,” Ngiva said.
“Right now, I am helping a neighbour build a shack, that’s what the sheet I was carrying is for.”
Metro officials are most concerned about the high levels of unemployment among the youth and women.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber also attributed this to the city’s ongoing water crisis, sporadic power outages, ageing infrastructure and political instability, which posed huge hurdles for retaining and attracting investment.
According to the latest figures released by Stats SA in its Quarterly Labour Force Survey, for the second quarter of 2021, unemployment in SA was at its highest since the first survey in 2008.
Across the country, 34.4% of the labour force, meaning people between the ages of 15 and 64 that are no longer in school and eligible for employment, are without work.
At a provincial level, the Eastern Cape’s unemployment rate is at 47.1%, way more than the next contender, which is the the Free State with 36.5%.
And among the country’s eight metropolitan municipalities, Nelson Mandela Bay is at the bottom of the log with a 39.8% unemployment rate.
In Sherwood, a 26-year-old qualified engineer is anxiously awaiting feedback on a job he applied for a week ago.
The firm he used to work for folded during the initial lockdown period in 2020, and since then he has struggled to find stable employment.
“I had a flat at St George’s Park, but I had to move back in with my parents because I couldn’t afford the rent.
“I had a company car, which was obviously taken away when the business failed,” he said.
“I went from being a professional, to being unemployed and nearly homeless in about three months.”
He said the firm he worked for had been struggling financially for some time, but had lined up a series of contracts early in 2020 that could have saved the company.
“But lockdown put their clients under pressure, causing them to put all construction on hold and the deals collapsed.
“I studied for four years. I haven’t even been able to pay my parents back properly, and now I am dependent on their generosity again.”
In the meantime, he has been doing some freelance work passed on to him by other engineers in the city, but it is sporadic and limited.
Employment agencies in the Bay have similarly seen a significant increase in the number of job seekers submitting CVs for any and all work opportunities, while employers have never been more picky with their appointments.
MPC Recruitment Gqeberha branch head Nikki Hynch said it was becoming increasingly difficult to find jobs for people without higher qualifications.
“It is tough finding work for matriculants and even more difficult for those who only finished grade 11.
“A lack of qualification is probably the biggest reason for people struggling to find employment.”
Acting city manager and economic development head Anele Qaba said the municipality was constantly engaging and collaborating with industry leaders, chambers of commerce and sector specialists to identify, plan and implement interventions to support economic growth.
“The worsening of the unemployment rate is attributed to industrial activity declining, specifically in the manufacturing, finance and construction sectors in the second quarter,” Qaba said.
He said emphasis should be placed on diversifying the economy which relied heavily on the automotive industry in the past.
Funding should be made available to develop SMMEs, which in turn could develop the struggling youth.
“Equally, more focus is also to be placed on labour-intensive sectors of the economy like agriculture, manufacturing and business process outsourcing with high prospects of increased employment,” Qaba said.
He said infrastructure development, public-private sector collaborations, and attracting and retaining direct foreign investment would also play an important role in the city’s economic revival.
Business Chamber chief executive Denise van Huyssteen said the metro’s “state of decline” predated the onset of Covid-19, but the last 18 months had worsened the situation.
“The economy has suffered immensely over the last decade.
“Economic recovery and job creation can only happen when a stable and predictable economic and political environment is in place and which is conducive to retaining and attracting business.”
She said the city needed to get the basics right to build confidence in investors.
For that to happen the “general ease of doing business” in the metro needed to improve.
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