South Africa’s unemployment rate decreased by 0.8 percentage points to 34.5% in the first quarter of 2022, Statistics South Africa has announced.
This compares well with the last quarter of 2021 when the country saw the highest unemployment rate on record of 35.3%, the agency said.
Releasing the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for first quarter of 2022 on Tuesday, Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke said these results indicated that 370,000 jobs were created between the fourth quarter of 2021 and the three months from January to March 2022.
“The total number of persons employed was 14.9 million people in the first quarter of 2022,” the official said.
The biggest job gains were recorded in community and social services, with 281,000 employed, followed by the manufacturing sector where 263,000 jobs were created and trade with 98,000 employed, Maluleke said.
However, there were job losses in private households at 186,000; finance at 72,000 losses; construction at 60,000 losses and agriculture at 23,000 job losses, he added.
The number of unemployed persons decreased by 60,000 to 7.9 million people in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the previous quarter.
Maluleke said the number of “discouraged work seekers” declined by 54,000 people or 1.4% compared to the previous quarter, while “the number of persons who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement decreased by 112,000 (0.8%) between the two quarters – resulting in a net decrease of 166,000 people in the not economically active population.”
NM/jn/APA