JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- South African economists warned that the country's economic outlook would continue being bleak and bleeding massive jobs losses if new reforms are not implemented.
The warning came after telecommunications company Telkom announced plans to retrench over 3,000 of its employees citing poor performance. Other companies in the retail sector including Massmart would shed nearly 1,500 jobs.
As the economy contracted by 3.2 percent and 0.6 in the first and third quarter respectively in 2019, chief economist at Efficient Group Dawie Roodt said massive job losses would continue.
"The reality is the economy is hardly growing and it's inevitable that job creation will be affected and people will lose jobs. This (retrenchment) is a trend that could keep up speed during the course of the year," he told Xinhua, "These announcements should not surprize us."
Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop said growth would decline if proper measures were not made to the economy.
"The government can foster policy certainly, improve the ease of doing business by cutting regulation," she told Xinhua,"South Africa's growth has been impacted by policy's uncertainty domestically and the failure to implement structural reforms needed this decade."
Roodt said several sectors including manufacturing and construction would suffer under the conditions and retrench workers.
"We have to get the economy to grow, we must have reliable electricity. We must have clarity as far as policy is concerned, we are not clear on economic policies and that's a problem," he added.
Bishop added that problems at Eskom must be dealt with to fix growth and the issue of jobs.
"Load shedding has impacted economic growth, incomes and employment with retailers without generators experiencing stock and trading losses, reducing growth and earning potential," Bishop added.
