Vinicius Konchinski Reporter Agência Brasil

Johannesburg, South África – Siphathisiwe Mahlansu used to sell telephones, but she lost that job in January. At the end of June she was given a temporary job as a security guard at the Soccer City stadium. “It is not the best job in the world, but it is something,” she said, resignedly. Her job was one of 35,000 direct but temprorary jobs created in South Africa as a result of the need for World Cup game security. Even so, an employment index (produced by a prestigious firm called “Adcorp”) found that unemployment actually rose by 6.2% between April and May in South Africa, that is, just before the games began. The reason was the loss of jobs in construction as stadium building came to an end and workers were laid off. The adcorp index just showed that a bad situation had gotten worse [the World Cup ran from June 11 to July 11].
Official unemployment in South Africa is 25.2%, as reported by the government statistics bureau. Before the 2009 world financial crisis, it was 21.9%. Richard Pike, president of Adcorp, says the unemployment index is going to rise even more in the near future. Meanwhile, Gillian Saunders, of the consultancy firm, Grant Thornton, which Fifa contracted to survey the economic situation in South Africa during the World Cup, says the games did have a positive impact on the job market creating a total of 174,000 jobs [it should be pointed out that most of these jobs were created over a five-year period, lasting only a part of that period and many of them have disappeared now]. Saunders does make a point when he says that even temporary work in stadium construction, for example, involved training. “These are people who are now better prepared to get work after the World Cup,” he says. 
Meanwhile, Siphathisiwe knows that after the final game on Sunday she will have to find another job. She hopes her experience at Soccer City will help. “I have to find work. Anything will do,” she says.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English
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