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Stats SA has released its Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the third quarter of the year, showing that the unemployment rate in the country has remained fairly stable at 27.7% – the worst levels in 14 years.<\/p>\n
The stats body revealed that while employment grew by 92,000 in the third quarter, this was offset by an additional 33,000 job-seekers during the same period. It said that 67% of the unemployed have been looking for work for a year or more.<\/p>\n
The growth in employment was mainly driven by finance and other business services industry which grew by 68,000, followed by community, social and personal services (56,000) and transport (34,000).<\/p>\n
All other industries reported employment growth quarter-to-quarter except manufacturing, construction and agriculture which declined by 50,000, 30,000 and 25,000 respectively.<\/p>\n
While the official unemployment rate remained unchanged quarter-to-quarter, this is still 0.6 of a percentage point higher compared to the same period last year.<\/p>\n
The number of employed persons in the formal sector increased by 187,000 in Q3: 2017, this is after employmnent losses of 144,000 in Q2: 2017. And after employment gains of 80,000 in the informal sector in the second quarter of 2017, the sector continued to record employment losses of 71,000 in Q3: 2017.<\/p>\n
This is the third highest quarterly decline in employment since Q2: 2010, StatsSA said.<\/p>\n
The largest decline in the unemployment rate was recorded in Free State (down by 2.6 percentage points), Limpopo (down by 1.7 percentage points) and Mpumalanga (down by 1.6 percentage points).<\/p>\n
The expanded unemployment rate which includes those who wanted to work but did not look for work increased by 0.2 of a percentage point in Q3: 2017 to 36.8%, StatsSA said.<\/p>\n
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