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The mining and manufacturing sector lost 15,000 jobs in December, while overall employment increased by a marginal 0.8%, according to the Adcorp Employment Index, which was released on Thursday.
The actual overall number of jobs grew by 12,556 in mining but permanent jobs continued to decline.
In the last 4 months of 2012 the economy added 125,029 jobs, reversing the decline of the first 8 months of last year.
Adcorp's labour market analyst, Loane Sharp, says employers are increasingly viewing labour costs as "non-core" activities, preferring to outsource these activities to specialised third parties.
He says the country's labour legislation is becoming "increasingly onerous".
