Author: Alastair Otter
-
Copper hits new highs as demand, including for renewables, soars
Copper prices have hit new highs over the past month as demand for the metal grows and experts predict a shortage in years to come. Copper is a key material in sectors including telecoms, power generation and construction. It is used in wiring for broadband networks and for transformers and generators in the power production…
-
ZA inflation steadies
Annual consumer price inflation was unchanged at 5.2% in May in line with some expectations, Statistics SA reported on Wednesday. The annual inflation rate of goods last month was 5.7%, unchanged from April, and for services, it was 4.7%, up from 4.6%. Food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation remained steady at 4.7% in May, unchanged from…
-
Nigerians face crippling food price increases
Nigerians are facing steep increases in food prices as inflation figures hit record highs. In May 2024 food inflation increased to 40.66%, an almost 16 percentage point increase on the May 2023 inflation rate of 24.82%, Punch reports. Headline inflation (covering all consumer goods) increased to 33.95% according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).…
-
Job trends: Telecoms keep at it, hospitality workers move fastest
The average South African employee spends 3 years and 1 month in their job before moving on, according to a recent report by online jobs portal Pnet. Roles with higher expertise demands, such as those in business and management, tend to see people staying longer in their jobs (4 years and 10 months on average).
-
How Eskom and other state-owned companies drain the government’s coffers
In its Budget Review 2024, the Treasury included a section titled ‘How state-owned company support has become a drain on the fiscus’. It showed how in 2020, support given to these companies, which include Eskom, South African Airways (SAA), Denel, the Post Office and Transnet, reached R59.8-billion and has not dropped below that level since.…
-
30 years of HIV: A public health success story
The HIV epidemic took a heavy toll on South Africa. The signs were there in 1994, when an estimated 380,000 people were newly infected with HIV. Six years later, new infections had risen to over half a million a year. All the while deaths from Aids were steadily increasing from an estimated 32,000 in 1994…
-
SA’s Olympic sprint hopeful in fine form
When South African sprinter Akani Simbine won at the Oslo Diamond League meeting on 30 May, it was his sixth 100m victory in six races. His winning time of 9.94 seconds was his first official sub-10 performance of the season. Outshining Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs, who came 4th with a time of 10.03, the South…
-
Slim pickings: What Joburg’s bin pickers earn and how long they’ve worked
Known variously as bin pickers, trolley pushers or dumpsite reclaimers, South Africa’s informal waste collectors play a surprisingly outsized role in the economy. Back in 2011 the Department of Environmental Affairs conservatively estimated that there could be as many as 62,000 waste pickers in the country, with about 40% of them working as trolley pushers.…