Slight drop in SA's unemployment rate
South Africa's official unemployment rate has dropped for a third consecutive quarter, Statistics SA announced on Tuesday.
Stats SA's Director for Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Dihlolelo Phoshoko announced that the unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage points, from 32.9% in the third quarter to 32.7 in the fourth quarter of 2022.
The latest stats show that 169,000 jobs were created in the fourth quarter - pushing the total number of employed people to 15.9 million.
However, the number of unemployed persons increased by 28 000 to 7,8 million in the fourth quarter.
Phoshoko says the unemployment rate according to the expanded definition also decreased by 0,5 of a percentage point to 42,6% in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter.
"The number of people who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement increased by 95 000 to 13.4 million and the discouraged work-seekers decreased by 151 000 in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the previous quarter resulting in a net decrease of 57 000 in the not economically active population," says Phoshoko.
The country’s youth remain the worst affected by the unemployment crisis.
"The total number of unemployed youth increased by 46 000 to 4.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2022,” says Phoshoko.
“There was an increase of 86 000 in the number of employed youth during the same period. The increase in employment and the decrease in unemployment among the youth resulted in a decrease in the youth unemployment rate by 0.2 of a percentage point.”
Read full quarterly labour force survey below:
p 02114 Th Quarter 2022 by anastasi mankese mokgobu on Scribd
