Stats SA chief defends capturing of unemployment data after Capitec suggests it's skewed 

The Money Show's Stephen Grootes is joined by Risenga Maluleke, Statistician General of South Africa.

Statistician General Risenga Maluleke has defended Stats SA's definition of employed and unemployed in the gathering of data that determines our official jobless rate.

Maluleke was responding to the suggestion by Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie that South Africa's unemployment rate of 32.9% could be as low as 10% if self-employed people in the informal sector were counted as employed.

RELATED: SA's definition of employment needs to be rethought to include informal sector, says Capitec CEO

Capitec's Francois Viviers explained the background to the bank's view during an interview on The Money Show on Tuesday.

In turn, Maluleke expands on Stats SA's methodology in a follow-up interview.

He defines an unemployed person as someone who is actively looking for employment and may not find it at any given point in time, adding that we need to understand the concept of employment, as in the guidelines by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

"An employed person is someone who is employed by another person or an entity in the form of a company, or is self-employed; and works for a minimum of one hour a week. This person who's employed can be working for a big firm in Sandton or selling vetkoek in the street or selling pap on the roadside - as long as they do that for pay they are employed."

Risenga Maluleke, Statistician General

Whether this person is registered as a taxpayer does not come into play when household members are surveyed, Maluleke adds.

Citing Capitec's banking data which appears to back up their view, Grootes asks where this disconnect with the Stats SA numbers could be coming in.

Are people possibly misunderstanding the terms 'unemployed 'and 'employed', or misrepresenting their job status?

This is unlikely, says Maluleke.

"We need to understand that definition when we look at people who say they're unemployed - there may be one or two who could say that for purposes of whatever reason they may have, but in the law of large numbers, that diminishes."

Risenga Maluleke, Statistician General

"Also, I have no reason whatsoever to believe that members of the public are always misleading us in relation to their employment status. This data that we're collecting has been showing a consistency over time in relation to how employment occurs. At some stage, we definitely would have picked it up."

Risenga Maluleke, Statistician General

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to Maluleke's argument in full