South Africa\u2019s unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2015 was at its highest level since 2003, according to Statistics SA, which released its quarterly labour force survey in Cape Town on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Statistician-general Pali Lehohla said South Africa\u2019s unemployment level increased to 26.4%, the highest level since 2003, when it hit 30%.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was stable at about 24% since 2003 and this spike is a new phenomenon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnemployment figures always drop in the first quarter of the year because of the impact of the festive season and Christmas, but this result is below the usual dip,\u201d said Kefiloe Masiteng, deputy director-general in charge of social statistics.<\/p>\n
The results of the first quarter shows that the working age population was 35.8 million, which included 15.5 million employed, 5.5 million unemployed and 14.8 million not economically active.
\n\u201cThus resulting in an unemployment rate of 26.4%, absorption rate of 43.2% and labour force participation rate of 58.6%,\u201d said Lehohla. Lehohla told Fin24 that the high unemployment numbers might not be the worst sign for South Africa. South Africa\u2019s employment rate increased by 1.8% year-on-year (y\/y) to 15.5 million people.<\/p>\n
He said the fact that there was an increase in employment created an environment of optimism. This optimism encouraged more people to ask for jobs, thus reflecting an increase in unemployment.<\/p>\n
In the first quarter, the number of unemployed people was 5.5 million. The expanded unemployment rate, which relaxes the requirement for job searchers to be classified as unemployed, increased by 1.5 percentage points to 36.1%.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnemployment still remains the biggest problem in SA,\u201d Lehohla said. \u201cWe also see some progression towards where we were in 2008. There is an upward trend, albeit subdued. These are important indices and need to be understood against the labour force participation and absorption rate, which is increasing.\u201d<\/p>\n
These results are the first using a new master sample. \u201cStats SA redesigned the 2007 (old) master sample in 2013 using the 2011 census data,\u201d Stats SA explained. \u201cThe new master sample should improve the level of precision in the estimates produced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lehohla said they ran parallel surveys using both samples and there was very little difference in the results, explaining that the new results can be compared to the previous results.<\/p>\n