Pretoria - South Africa's official jobless rate eased to 23.9% of the labour fource in the fourth quarter of 2011, from 25.0% in the third quarter, a survey showed on Tuesday.

In its latest quartely Labour Force Survey, Statistics South Africa said the total number of unemployed people stood at 4.244 million in the three months to December from 4.442 million in the third quarter.

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 35.4%.

Chris Hart, chief economist, Investment Solutions, said the economy was starting to claw some of the jobs lost in the wake of the global financial crisis.

"However, job creation is not happening in abundance or at the rate that could ever hope to materially dent unemployment. We are tinkering in decimal points whereas the substance of unemployment is not really being resolved at all. This economy is not geared to creating jobs because the environment is too hostile for small business," he said.

"Programmes (announced by President Zuma last year) are really mere gestures. They could never ever be a solution to our jobs crisis."

The government sees unemployment as one of the major challenges for South Africa's economy after a million jobs were lost during a recession in 2009 and have not been recovered.

Out of nearly 50 million people in South Africa, only about 13.1 million are employed, with only 40% of people of working age in a job.

The government is proposing changes to labour laws that are intended to increase job security for temporary workers but economists expect the shake-up will worsen unemployment as it partly ramps up costs for employers.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has said the economy needs to grow by 7% a year on a sustained basis to make a dent on unemployment, more than double the current rate of 3.1% seen for 2011.

According to a study published in the British Medical Journal in November 2011, nine sub-Saharan countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) invested some $2 billion in costs of educating doctors who subsequently emigrated to the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, or Canada.

The receiving countries gained an estimated $4.55 billion from these investments, in savings from medical education that they did not have to finance. The familiar phenomenon of "brain drain," it is clear, should also be seen as a subsidy from developing to developed countries.

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from this new study published in the British Medical Journal, providing quantitative estimates of the losses to nine sub-Saharan African countries (and associated gains to recipient countries) from the emigration of doctors to the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, reaching a cumulative total of at least $2 billion. This raises the question of how to compensate the countries who provided these doctors for their de facto subsidies to the countries receiving these skilled workers.

LUSAKA, Zambia -(Dow Jones)- Zambia has ordered an audit of the influx of foreign labour coming into the mining industry, following on from an already announced process to review the outsourcing of labor to expatriate workers, in an effort to provide more jobs to its "displaced" nationals, mines minister Wilbur Simuusa said Friday.

The audit by Zambia, Africa's leading copper producer, is intended to determine the number of expatriates working in the mines in place of skilled nationals.

"We have asked officials from the ministry of labour, and ministry of home affairs (interior), to establish the truth about these reports from the workers' unions and citizens in general that jobs meant for Zambians are being taken by expatriates," Simuusa said from South Africa by phone, echoing promises made last year by then president-elect Michael Sata in the run up to his September 2011 election victory.

Recently, former labour minister Fackson Shamenda stated that it had been difficult to determine the number of expatriates working in the mining industry and that the government was putting in place measures to control the number of expatiates being engaged in the industry.

Issuance of work permits for expatriate workers is one of the measures the government has undertaken to ensure that foreign skilled labour was hired into the country for jobs unable to be done by Zambians.

In a recent unpleasant escalation, more than 3,000 Zambian youths besieged the mines minister at one of Zambia's major mining companies in Northern Zambia, complaining about the influx of expatriate workers at the unit, despite what they claimed was their skills in various trades. The situation was diffused when Simuusa sought the youths patience while seeking dialogue with management on the matter.

The chamber of mines, a consortium of foreign mining companies operating in Zambia, could not be reached by phone.

This comes after a 33-year-old Bangladeshi reportedly died in a Home Affairs queue at the Maitland Refugee Reception Centre yesterday while waiting to get his asylum-seeking documents.

People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (Passop) pointed out that people could clearly see that the man was ill. They had reportedly asked Home Affairs officials to let the man go inside and be assisted first, but this was denied.

Tragically, by the time officials eventually let him in, it was too late.

As the country that receives the largest number of individual asylum applications in the world - approximately 250 000 a year - South Africa should be employing an effective and efficient management system when refugees seek sanctuary in our country. This starting point needs to be service at Refugee Reception Centres.

These centres are well known for having lengthy queues in which people are subjected to scorching heat with no access to water. Vendors and hawkers are also prohibited from setting up stalls to sell food. These are unacceptable conditions.

As a signatory to the United Nations Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, South Africa is obligated to respect and protect the human rights of refugees and of those seeking asylum in our country.

This event is a reflection of the Department's poor commitment to protect the rights of people who turn to us for protection.

Immigration officials have granted a reprieve to a gay South African man so he can stay on Long Island and care for his ailing spouse.

Tim Smulian, 65, was nearly forced to leave his seriously ill partner alone in the U.S. for six months because of restrictions to his tourist visa.

He married New Yorker Edwin Blesch, 70, in South Africa in 1999, and while their union is recognized by Immigration officials have granted a reprieve to a gay South African man so he can stay on Long Island and care for his ailing spouse.

Tim Smulian, 65, was nearly forced to leave his seriously ill partner alone in the U.S. for six months because of restrictions to his tourist visa.

He married New Yorker Edwin Blesch, 70, in South Africa in 1999, and while their union is recognized by

New York State, it did not give the pair any federal immigration benefits.

For more than a decade the couple spent six months a year in South Africa and six months on Long Island, but Blesch, who is HIV positive, suffered several mini-strokes and other complications and can no longer travel.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) intervened in the case, and officials have granted Smulian a one-year reprieve so he can stay at Blesch’s bedside.

“I am relieved to hear that Tim and Edwin are no longer living in fear of separation at a time when they need each other the most,” Gillibrand said.

“Loving committed couples deserve access to all the same immigration rights and protections as straight couples.

“I will continue to fight for LGBT immigrant families and push for reform that reunites families rather than tears them apart.”

LUSAKA, Zambia -(Dow Jones)- Zambia has ordered an audit of the influx of foreign labour coming into the mining industry, following on from an already announced process to review the outsourcing of labor to expatriate workers, in an effort to provide more jobs to its "displaced" nationals, mines minister Wilbur Simuusa said Friday.

The audit by Zambia, Africa's leading copper producer, is intended to determine the number of expatriates working in the mines in place of skilled nationals.

LUSAKA, Zambia -(Dow Jones)- Zambia has ordered an audit of the influx of foreign labour coming into the mining industry, following on from an already announced process to review the outsourcing of labor to expatriate workers, in an effort to provide more jobs to its "displaced" nationals, mines minister Wilbur Simuusa said Friday.

The audit by Zambia, Africa's leading copper producer, is intended to determine the number of expatriates working in the mines in place of skilled nationals.

"We have asked officials from the ministry of labour, and ministry of home affairs (interior), to establish the truth about these reports from the workers' unions and citizens in general that jobs meant for Zambians are being taken by expatriates," Simuusa said from South Africa by phone, echoing promises made last year by then president-elect Michael Sata in the run up to his September 2011 election victory.

Recently, former labour minister Fackson Shamenda stated that it had been difficult to determine the number of expatriates working in the mining industry and that the government was putting in place measures to control the number of expatiates being engaged in the industry.

Issuance of work permits for expatriate workers is one of the measures the government has undertaken to ensure that foreign skilled labour was hired into the country for jobs unable to be done by Zambians.

In a recent unpleasant escalation, more than 3,000 Zambian youths besieged the mines minister at one of Zambia's major mining companies in Northern Zambia, complaining about the influx of expatriate workers at the unit, despite what they claimed was their skills in various trades. The situation was diffused when Simuusa sought the youths patience while seeking dialogue with management on the matter.

The chamber of mines, a consortium of foreign mining companies operating in Zambia, could not be reached by phone.

HARARE, 10 February 2012 (IRIN) - Thousands of Zimbabwean households are feeling the effects of lost remittances from family members forcibly returned from neighbouring South Africa since that country resumed deportations of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants in October 2011.

Makaita Gwati, 60, from rural Chirumhanzi, about 90km from the provincial capital of Masvingo in southeastern Zimbabwe, relied on the income her son and daughter sent from South Africa to support the rest of the family, until both were deported in November last year.

“I counted on them for money to buy food and other essential items, but now that they are here and they can’t find jobs, I don’t know how we will survive,” Gwati told IRIN.

In the last two years, Chirumhanzi has experienced poor rainfall and Gwati has harvested little from her plot of land, forcing her to buy food to feed her family. The remittances from South Africa had also helped support her five grandchildren and pay for medical costs.

“I am worried that given my poor state of health, there is no more money to send me to hospital. As I speak, the [grand]children’s school fees have not been paid and we have been forced to have one meal a day,” she said.

I counted on them for money to buy food and other essential items, but now that they are here and they can't find jobs, I don't know how we will surviveZimbabwe suffered a decade-long economic crisis characterized by a near collapse of industry, hyperinflation, critical shortages of commodities, poor social services and the migration of millions of Zimbabweans to neighbouring countries and other parts of the world.

The formation of a coalition government and the adoption of multiple currencies to replace the weak Zimbabwean dollar in early 2009 set the economy on a recovery path, but levels of unemployment are still high and large numbers of Zimbabweans continue to try their luck in South Africa.

In April 2009, the South African government announced a moratorium on deportations of undocumented Zimbabwean migrants and the following year gave them the opportunity to regularize their stay by applying for work and study permits through the Zimbabwe Documentation Project (ZDP). The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that 1-1.5 million Zimbabwean migrants are living in South Africa, but only 275,000 had applied to be regularized through the ZDP by the 31 December 2010 deadline.

NEW DELHI: India has asked South Africa to streamline procedure for issuance of business visas to cut down on processing time, which is as long as six months in some cases, and also address concerns on non-renewal of intra-company transfer visas.

The commerce and industry ministry has taken up the issue with the South African government, and has asked for an early solution

A South African court today dismissed a high-profile case filed by two opposition parties challenging the government's right to deny a visa to the Dalai Lama last year, apparently under Chinese pressure.