Why the fuss about Monday’s shutdown?

Why the fuss about Monday’s shutdown? Let’s look from a statistical perspective what it means. South Africa has a population of 69 million.

Of this, 53% are unemployed according to the expanded definition, 33% are under the age of 18, and 7% are retired. Add it up and we see that this comprises 93% of our population. That leaves only 7% – or 4.83 million people – supposedly active in the economy.

Of these, 2.1 million are government employees and judged on the levels of service delivery, it’s totally irrelevant whether they pitch up at work or not, as they seem to be on a permanent shutdown.

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Of the remaining 2.73 million, 25% have already put in a day’s leave for Monday to create a long weekend as Tuesday is a public holiday.

Statistics also show that on any given day, 15% of the total workforce is off sick, but this spikes to 20% on Mondays. That’s a sickening statistic in itself, but that’s the truth. With 45% of the 2.73 million also out of action, we are down to 1 501 500 people.

But we still have to subtract the 1.1 million university students (private and public), 160 000 prisoners, 110 000 people in hospitals, and 9 766 politicians leaving us with 121 734.

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On Mondays, there are also those who are absent from work due to “car problems” (7 481), those who are on compassionate leave (26 897), those who have to stay home because their child minder is unavailable (9 785), people with a burst geyser or other household problem (2 651), stranded out of town (3 847), moving house (6 012), kicked out by their spouse (1 098), stuck at home due to gate not working because of load shedding (22 567), sick pet (1 875), waiting for an assessor because they suffered damage due to load shedding (24 823), and those who just don’t pitch up without any excuse (14 697).

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I’m not making this up. That leaves only one person expected to work on Monday: me. So, if Julius Malema wants to shut down the country, just send me a note: I will stay home. Problem solved.