{"id":78612,"date":"2015-01-30T00:05:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T22:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=78612"},"modified":"2015-01-29T18:09:44","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T16:09:44","slug":"south-africa-is-the-most-miserable-country-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/78612\/south-africa-is-the-most-miserable-country-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa is the most miserable country in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report by the Cato Institute puts South Africa among the most miserable countries in the world.<\/p>\n

Cato is a public policy research organisation which bases its findings on four key data points: Unemployment levels, interest rates, consumer prices and economic growth.<\/p>\n

“Every country aims to lower inflation, unemployment, and lending rates, while increasing gross domestic product (GDP) per capita,” said author of the Index, Steve Hanke, a Professor at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

“Through a simple sum of the former three rates, minus year-on-year per capita GDP growth, I constructed a misery index that comprehensively ranks 108 countries based on misery,”<\/p>\n

Countries not included in the table did not report satisfactory data for 2014, he said.<\/p>\n

South Africa placed as the 10th most miserable country<\/a>, largely due to its unemployment rate, which is at 25%.<\/p>\n

The country is projected to have the 8th highest unemployment rate in the world in 2015, according to a report <\/a>recently issued by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).<\/p>\n

South Africa is ahead of other African countries including Sudan (11), Egypt (18), Algeria (45), Mauritius (56), Seychelles (62), and Morocco (69).<\/p>\n

The five most miserable countries in the world at the end of 2014 are, in order: Venezuela, Argentina, Syria, Ukraine, and Iran.<\/p>\n

The five least miserable are Brunei, Switzerland, China, Taiwan, and Japan.<\/p>\n

Venezuela finds itself in a recession and is at the top of the Misery Index due to its inflation rate, above 63%, the highest in the world.<\/p>\n

The country earns 96% of its export revenue from oil, which has tumbled to as low as $45 a barrel.<\/p>\n

The inflation rate in South Africa was recorded at 5.3% in December 2014. A prior index ranking of only 89 countries, placed South Africa 8th.<\/p>\n

10 most miserable countries in the world<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/strong><\/td>\nCountry<\/strong><\/td>\nHighest contributing factor<\/strong><\/td>\nIndex score
\n<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nVenezuela<\/td>\nConsumer prices<\/td>\n106.03<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nArgentina<\/td>\nConsumer prices<\/td>\n68.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nSyria<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n63.90<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nUkraine<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n51.80<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nIran<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n49.10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nBrazil<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n42.79<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nSao Tome<\/td>\nInterest rates<\/td>\n42.06<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nSerbia<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n40.32<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nJamaica<\/td>\nInterest rates<\/td>\n39.85<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nSouth Africa<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n39.16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

10 least miserable countries<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/strong><\/td>\nCountry<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\nHighest contributing factor<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\nIndex score<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nBrunei<\/td>\nInterest rates<\/td>\n4.94<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nSwitzerland<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n5.39<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nChina<\/td>\nInterest rates<\/td>\n5.69<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nTaiwan<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n5.91<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nJapan<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n6.18<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nSouth Korea<\/td>\nInterest rates<\/td>\n6.86<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nNorway<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n7.22<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nMalaysia<\/td>\nInterest rates<\/td>\n7.36<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nSingapore<\/td>\nInterest rates<\/td>\n7.44<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nGermany<\/td>\nUnemployment<\/td>\n7.62<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

\u00a0More on South Africa<\/h3>\n

The most miserable countries in the world<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report by the Cato Institute puts South Africa among the most miserable countries in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":58517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9434,26,9436],"class_list":["post-78612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-cato-institute","tag-headline","tag-international-labour-organisation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78612","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=78612"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78630,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78612\/revisions\/78630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}