According to Stats SA, South Africa has recorded its highest unemployment rate since 2008 at 32.5% in the fourth quarter of 2020.
While the Eastern Cape tops the expanded unemployment chart among all provinces, its neighbour, the Western Cape’s rate stood at 26.8% as the least affected by the crisis.
The Quarterly Labour Force Survey has shown that the number of employed persons increased by 333,000 to 15 million, the third-largest increase since the start of the survey in 2008.
While the results from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the fourth quarter of 2020 showed that the number of employed people increased to 15 million, it also showed that the number of unemployed people increased to 7.2 million.
The third quarter Labour Force Survey showed that the unemployment rate rose to 30.8% between July and September while the expanded definition increased to 43.1%.
While the country’s working-age population continued to grow, increasing by 585,000 or 1.5% in the third quarter, the job market continued to contract.
The expanded definition of unemployment increased by 1.1 percentage points to 43.1% in the third quarter of 2020 compared to quarter two.
Andrea Hartzenburg is one of 2.2 million people who've lost their jobs during the second quarter of this year.
National spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said that this was what happened when there was a government that was hellbent on implementing a framework of policies that did not place employment creation as a priority.
The president was responding to the data released by Stats SA, which revealed that South Africa's unemployment rate fell to 23.3% in the second quarter from 30.1% in the first quarter due to fewer people looking for work amid the nation's strict coronavirus lockdown.
Economic experts have criticised Stats SA’s decision to define the 2.2 million job losses during the second quarter as economically not active people.
The number of discouraged work-seekers in the country has increased by close to 500,000, while the total number of people who are not economically active for other reasons increased to 5.6 million between the first and second quarter of the year.
Stats SA on Tuesday said the official unemployment figure shrunk to a record low from 30.1% in the first quarter of the year, the lowest unemployment rate recorded since 2008.
The South African economy has lost 2.2 million jobs in the second quarter of 2020, according to the data released by StatsSA.
The grim outlook on the data is based on the GDP’s performance in the second half of the year, which saw the country fall deeper into recession with the economy shrinking by 16.4%.
This is for the second quarter of this year which was affected by the nationwide lockdown.
The number of employed persons decreased by 38,000 to 16,4 million between January and March 2020.
Stats SA announced on Tuesday that South Africa's unemployment rate remained at 29.1% - the highest it has been since 2008.
