{"id":495075,"date":"2021-06-01T11:58:05","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T09:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=495075"},"modified":"2021-06-01T11:58:38","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T09:58:38","slug":"south-africas-unemployment-rate-hits-new-all-time-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/495075\/south-africas-unemployment-rate-hits-new-all-time-high\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s unemployment rate hits new all-time high"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stats SA has published its latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QFLS) for the first quarter of\u00a0 2021, showing a marginal increase in the number of unemployed people in the country, to an all-time high of 32.6%.<\/p>\n

The results of the QLFS show that the number of employed persons remained almost unchanged at 15 million – a slight decrease of 28,000 – in the first of quarter 2021.<\/p>\n

The number of unemployed persons also remained almost unchanged at 7.2 million compared to the fourth quarter of 2020 – an increase of 8,000.<\/p>\n

The number of discouraged work-seekers increased by 201,000 (6.9%), and the number of people who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement decreased by 38,000 (0.3%) between the two quarters, resulting in a net increase of 164,000 in the not economically active population.<\/p>\n

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“These minor changes resulted in the official unemployment rate increasing by 0.1 of a percentage point from 32.5% in the fourth quarter of 2020 to 32.6% in the first quarter of 2021 – the highest since the start of the QLFS in 2008<\/strong>,” Stats SA said.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate according to the expanded definition of unemployment increased by 0.6 of a percentage point, to 43.2% in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2020.<\/p>\n

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Stats SA said that to better understand the observed changes in the key labour market indicators between Q4: 2020 and Q1: 2021, tabulations were made to study movements between labour market status categories.<\/p>\n

Here it was observed that a large number of people moved from the “employed” status to “not economically active” and “unemployed” categories between the two quarters.<\/p>\n

The movement was proportionately more to the not economically active than for the unemployed, which resulted in an increase of 0.1 of a percentage point in the unemployment rate to 32.6%.<\/p>\n

The labour force participation rate was also lower in Q1: 2021 as compared to Q4: 2020 as a result of these movements \u2013 decreasing by 0.2 of a percentage point to 56.4%. The absorption rate also decreased by 0.2 of a percentage point to 38.0% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the fourth quarter of 2020.<\/p>\n

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These numbers reflect an economy still greatly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns of 2020, with many capable workers still inactive.<\/p>\n

Compared to a year ago – before the pandemic hit – total employment decreased by 1.4 million. The number of unemployed persons increased by 2.4% (172,000), while the number of persons who were not economically active increased by 11.6% (1.8 million).<\/p>\n

A million and a half of these individuals are in the “other” category, used to house those who lost their jobs due to pandemic or lockdown-related circumstances.<\/p>\n

The largest employment decreases were observed in private households (70,000), followed by the informal sector (19,000), and the agricultural sector (18,000) in Q1: 2021.<\/p>\n

Employment increases were only observed in the formal sector (79,000).<\/p>\n

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Read: Unemployment in South Africa has likely reached its high point: economists<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stats SA has published its latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QFLS) for the first quarter of\u00a0 2021, showing a marginal increase in the number of unemployed people in the country, to an all-time high of 32.6%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":495093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,1809],"class_list":["post-495075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495075","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=495075"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495101,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495075\/revisions\/495101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}