South Africa’s Unemployment rate has declined by 33.9%

Stats SA has released its Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the second quarter of the year, showing that the country’s unemployment rate decreased for the second consecutive quarter.

The country’s unemployment rate improved,marginally, by 0.6 of a percentage point from 34.5% in the first quarter to 33.9% in the second quarter.

The unemployment rate according to the expanded definition of unemployment also decreased by 1.4 percentage points to 44.1 % in Quarter2 2022 compared to Quarter1:2022.

The biggest job gains were recorded in Community and Social Services (276,000), Trade (169,000), Finance (128,000) and Construction (104,000). However, there were job losses in Manufacturing (73,000) and Transport (54,000). The total number of persons employed was 15.6 million in the second quarter of 2022.

The number of unemployed persons increased by 132,000 to 8.0 million in the second quarter of 2022 compared to the previous quarter. The number of discouraged work-seekers decreased by 183,000 (4.9%), and the number of people who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement decreased by 452,000 (3.3%) between the two quarters.

Done by Lizeka Tsotetsi