groups, with bla.ck people pessimistic for the first time since before the
country's first democratic elections in 1994. "101
In this econornic climate, the social trends of the Mandela period per-
sisted. The gap between the rich (including the new black elite) and the
poor (who were overwhelmingly African) continued to widen. Educated,
skilled people wc:~re in such demand that they had no difficulty finding jobs
with high and rapidly rising salaries, whereas nearly half of the unedu-
cated, unskilled people were unemployed, and the wages of those who did
291