South Africa’s unemployment rate vs the world
South Africa’s unemployment rate has been ranked as the worst in the world in a new global competitiveness report.
The IMD Global Competitiveness Report puts South Africa at 61st out of 61 countries for its unemployment figures, while SA also ranks poorly for a number of matters relating to labour.
In April, Stats SA revealed that unemployment in the first quarter of 2016 was up at 26.7% – 2.2 percentage points higher than the previous quarter.
This was reflective of over 355,000 jobs that were lost between the two quarters, the stats body said.
According to data from the International Labour Organization, South Africa’s 2016 unemployment rate of 26.7% puts it in the bottom 10 countries in the world.
According to the ILO South Africa ranks as the 9th worst country for employment in the world, but is the lowest-ranked country with a mature and developed economy.
Taking population numbers into account, South Africa is the only high population country in the bottom 10, with a population of 55 million people.
The next closest high population country on the list is Spain.
Top 20 worst countries for employment
| # | Country | Population (Total) | Unemployment rate (Working population, 15+) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Djibouti | 899 598 | 53.0% |
| 2 | Solomon Islands | 594 934 | 34.9% |
| 3 | Mauritania | 4 166 463 | 31.1% |
| 4 | Reunion | 867 214 | 30.0% |
| 5 | Gambia | 2 054 986 | 29.9% |
| 6 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 3 802 134 | 29.4% |
| 7 | Macedonia | 2 081 012 | 28.1% |
| 8 | Lesotho | 2 160 309 | 28.0% |
| 9 | South Africa | 54 978 907 | 26.7% |
| 10 | Guadeloupe | 470 547 | 26.4% |
| 11 | Swaziland | 1 304 063 | 25.4% |
| 12 | Palestine | 4 797 239 | 25.3% |
| 13 | Namibia | 2 513 981 | 24.7% |
| 14 | Greece | 10 919 459 | 24.6% |
| 15 | French Guiana | 275 688 | 24.4% |
| 16 | Martinique | 396 364 | 23.4% |
| 17 | Mozambique | 28 751 362 | 22.1% |
| 18 | Spain | 46 064 604 | 21.5% |
| 19 | Libya | 6 330 159 | 20.6% |
| 20 | Gabon | 1 763 142 | 20.5% |
On the other side of the listing, the ILO sees Qatar as having the lowest unemployment rate. However, Qatar has controversial labour laws which is seen by global bodies as being a form of modern-day slavery.
In that case, the statistics likely refer to Qatar citizens, and not the “slave labour” population, which would not be counted.
Other nations with low unemployment rates include Thailand, Cambodia, Bahrain and Burundi. In many of these cases, the employment rates are not necessarily a reflection of “all is well” as the measurements used by the respective governments may skew the results.
In Thailand, for example, many workers are ‘underemployed’ working minimal hours, while many others are informally employed.
These are the 10 best countries for employment
| # | Country | Population | Unemployment rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Qatar | 2 291 368 | 0.3% |
| 2 | Cambodia | 15 827 241 | 0.6% |
| 3 | Benin | 11 166 658 | 1.1% |
| 4 | Thailand | 68 146 609 | 1.1% |
| 5 | Burundi | 11 552 561 | 1.3% |
| 6 | Laos | 6 918 367 | 1.6% |
| 7 | Guinea | 12 947 122 | 1.7% |
| 8 | Macau, China | 597 126 | 1.8% |
| 9 | Brunei Darussalam | 428 874 | 1.9% |
| 10 | Vietnam | 94 444 200 | 2.1% |
More on unemployment
High unemployment in SA is apartheid’s fault: Zuma
Radical transformation will solve SA unemployment: Black Business Council
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