South African unemployment jumps as 100,000 people lose their jobs

The official unemployment rate increased by half a percentage point to 27.2% compared to the first quarter 2018 rate of 26.7%.

The results of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the second quarter of 2018 released by Statistics South Africa today, indicate that the increase in the unemployment rate is a result of a decline of 90,000 in the number of people in employment.

This is due to 12,000 people being added to the workforce between quarters, and an increase of 102,000 in the number of people who became unemployed between the first and second quarters of 2018.

The South African working-age population increased by 154,000 or 0.4% in the second quarter of 2018 compared to the first quarter of 2018.

The number of discouraged work-seekers also increased to 2.9 million during this period.

Employment gains of 22,000 were recorded in private households, while the formal sector (35,000), informal sector (73,000), Agriculture (3,000) recorded employment losses between first and second quarters of 2018.

The number of discouraged work-seekers increased by 77,000 while the number of other not economically active persons increased by 65,000, resulting in an increase of 141,000 (up by 0.9%) in the number of people not in the labour force between the first and second quarters of 2018.

The industry that recorded the most job losses was Manufacturing which accounted for 105,000 jobs, followed by Community, social and personal services (93,000) and Trade (57,000).

Employment increases were recorded in Transport (54,000), Construction (45,000), Mining (38,000), Private households (22,000) and Utilities (18,000) industries.

Provincial unemployment

The largest increase in the unemployment rate was recorded in Free State (up by 1.6 percentage points), followed by Gauteng (up by 1.1 percentage points), and Western Cape (up by 1.0 percentage point).

A decline in official unemployment rates were recorded in Eastern Cape (down by 1.4 percentage points), Northern Cape (down by 0.6 of a percentage point), Limpopo (down by 0.6 of a percentage point) and KwaZulu-Natal (down by 0.5 of a percentage point).

The expanded unemployment rate increased by 0.5 of a percentage point in Q2: 2018 to 37.2% quarter-to-quarter, with Eastern Cape having the highest unemployment rate at 45.8%.

KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and North West had a difference of more than 17 percentage points between the official and expanded unemployment rates.

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