{"id":280725,"date":"2018-10-30T11:46:35","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=280725"},"modified":"2018-10-30T11:52:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:52:54","slug":"south-african-unemployment-rate-climbs-as-the-formal-sector-sheds-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/280725\/south-african-unemployment-rate-climbs-as-the-formal-sector-sheds-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"South African unemployment rate climbs as the formal sector sheds jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stats SA has published its latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey results for the third quarter of the year, showing that South Africa’s unemployment rate increased marginally to 27.5%.<\/p>\n

According to the stats group the South African working-age population increased by 153,000 or 0.4% in the third quarter of 2018 compared to the second quarter of 2018.<\/p>\n

The number of employed persons increased by 92,000 to 16.4 million and the number of unemployed persons rose by 127,000 to 6.2 million in Q3: 2018.<\/p>\n

The absorption rate remained unchanged at 43.1% and the unemployment rate increased by 0.3 of a percentage point to 27.5% in the same period.<\/p>\n

The expanded unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 37.3%.<\/p>\n

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The net increase of 92,000 employed people was not enough to compensate for the influx of new job seekers and rise of unemployed persons.<\/p>\n

The formal sector saw a reduction of 65,000 jobs in the quarter, while private households shed a further 30,000 jobs. The agriculture sector saw the loss of 1,000 jobs.<\/p>\n

The informal sector, meanwhile, grew by 188,000 jobs over the period.<\/p>\n

Compared to a year ago, employment increased by 1.2% (188 000), Stats SA said, while unemployment decreased by 1,000 and the number of persons who were not economically active increased by 2.8% (424,000) \u2013 297,000 being discouraged work-seekers.<\/p>\n

By Sector, finance and other business services saw the biggest increase in employment, with a 102,000 new jobs, while private households saw the biggest loss (30,000 jobs) followed by the mining industry (29,000 jobs).<\/p>\n

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South Africa’s unemployment problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest data comes just days after president Cyril Ramaphosa promised that a fresh investment drive for South Africa would lead to job creation in the country.<\/p>\n

The president announced that investment initiatives have so far secured R260 billion for South Africa, with the promise that the number of employment opportunities coming would be \u201cphenomenal\u201d and \u201cunprecedented\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier in October, Ramaphosa hosted a two-day jobs summit, highlighting the country\u2019s urgent need for job creation.<\/p>\n

He called for all industries to align and develop \u201cpractical measures\u201d and initiatives to create employment for millions of South Africans.<\/p>\n

Special attention is being made on youth unemployment, with the launch of Yes4Youth, which aims to link black South Africans to employment opportunities.<\/p>\n

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Read:\u00a0This incredible map shows where the highest levels of unemployment are in Gauteng<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stats SA has published its latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey results for the third quarter of the year, showing that South Africa’s unemployment rate increased marginally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":65646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,1809],"class_list":["post-280725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280725"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280749,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280725\/revisions\/280749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}