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- Africa's largest automated payments clearing house BankservAfrica says SA salary earners took R2 more home this July than they did a year earlier.
- The average July take-home pay was also R383 lower than in June 2021.
- But that's before income and job losses created by the July unrest make their way into the system.
As the price of petrol started climbing and municipal rates and electricity increases in the big metros kicked in, South African salary earners had only R2 more in July than they did the same month in 2020 to fund those increases.
According to the BankservAfrica Take Home Pay Index (BTPI) for July 2021, the average salary in the country did not change compared to a year ago.
In July, the real average salary - after inflation - was R12 129, which was R2 more than in July 2020 and R383 lower than in June 2021.
July was a month of turmoil for SA as the country had gone back to a stricter adjusted lockdown level 4 until 25 July. Restaurants were operating on a take-away and delivery basis only, the tourism industry missed out on leisure travellers from Gauteng, and the alcohol industry was once again at a standstill.
When the unrest happened, more people lost their jobs and incomes when looters ransacked malls and warehouses and criminals set shopping centres, warehouses and offices on fire. Still, BankservAfrica reckoned that the average take-home pay for July 2021 was robust, despite staying on the same level.
Effect of the unrest yet to be felt
The payments clearing house said the unrest and looting led to very few job losses. The number of people receiving a paycheque did not change significantly from June. Instead, the number of payments made declined by less than -0.1% from June 2021.
"We do not yet see any of the job losses from the looting or riots in our BTPI data. However, one suspects that the worst-hit areas will show some job losses or at least temporary non-payments. The data should reflect this impact over the next month or two," wrote BankservAfrica in the July take-home pay report.
BankservAfrica said that employment and salaries lag economic and political events on the ground, just like 2020 income and job losses only became apparent months after the harsher lockdown level 5. In the case of the July unrest, the company said the July take-home pay numbers most likely reflected the employment numbers in June and the salary increases awarded up to then.
As for private pensions, the index showed that they grew at double the inflation rate for the ninth month in a row. While inflation rose by 4.6% in July compared to a year ago, pensions rose by 10.8% to an average of R9 250.
BankservAfrica thinks this might be due to regulatory changes that allowed lower-income pensioners to withdraw their remaining money. Retirees with less than R247 000 in their pension funds can take the full amount as a lump sum.
"This has led to many exiting the pension system. In the last nine years, the average number of pensioners per month was 665 000. In the last three months, this number has dropped down to 640 000. The number of private pensioners has now declined to below the nine-year average," said BankservAfrica.
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