Employment boost for SA
Employment increased by 22,000 between Q2:2014 and Q3:2014 in South Africa, while unemployment decreased marginally by 3,000 resulting in an increase of 19 000 persons in the labour force.
This is according to a new quarterly report from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).
The unemployment rate declined by 0.1 of a percentage point to 25.4%, with the country’s labour force at 20.3 million, with 15.1 million employed, and 5.2 million without work.
The expanded unemployment rate which relaxes the requirement of job search to be classified as unemployed increased by 0.2 of percentage point to 35,8% in the third quarter of 2014.
Job gains were recorded in both the formal (88,000) and informal (28,000) sectors between the second and third quarter, Stats SA said.
Large gains in the formal sector were observed in the Construction (66,000), Trade (48,000) and Mining (23,000) industries.
In the informal sector, the largest gains in employment were observed in the Construction (33,000), Manufacturing (14,000) and Transport (10,000) industries over this period.
Employment declines were observed in the Transport (-25,000), Community and social services (-22,000) and Manufacturing (-18,000) industries.
Since the decline in employment to its lowest level in Q3: 2010 (13.6 million) 1.5 million jobs have been created of which 1.4 million were in the formal sector.
A year-on-year increase of 351,000 in the labour force is the result of an increase in both employment and unemployment by 81,000 and 271,000 respectively, Stats SA said.
In the 3rd quarter of 2014, the number of unemployed persons declined to 5.2 million. On an annual basis the number of unemployed increased by 271,000.
Compared to the second quarter of 2014, the unemployment rate declined in four of the nine province and increased in the North West (0.8 of a percentage point), KwaZulu-Natal (0.4 of a percentage point) and the Western Cape (0.1 of a percentage point).
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