On Tuesday, Stats SA released the Quarterly Labour Force Survey that recorded an official unemployment rate of 34.5% – a slight decline of 0.8 percentage points.
The official unemployment rate decreased by point-8 of a percentage point from 35.3% in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 34.5%. Q1 OF 2022
The labour market gained 370,000 jobs since the fourth quarter of 2021.
The unemployment rate reached a record high of 35.3% in the fourth quarter of last year while the expanded definition of joblessness stood at 46.2%.
The chief director responsible for labour statistics at Stats SA, Malerato Mosiane, said the Quarterly Labour Force Survey results were meant to go out on 22 February but had to delay the release of the results 'because of some concerns on the quality of data'.
This follows Quarterly Labour Force Survey data that shows the unemployment rate has risen to 35.3%in the last quarter of 2021.
The Quarterly Labour Force Survey found that the number of employed persons decreased by 660,000 in the third quarter of 2021 to 14.3 million, while the number of unemployed persons decreased by 183,000 to 7.6 million compared to the second quarter of 2021.
Stats SA's Quarterly Labour Force Survey showed the unemployment rate was higher than ever before, with as many as twelve million people without jobs.
On Tuesday, Stats SA released the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the second quarter of 2021, which showed that unemployment rose to a record high of 34.4%.
This is the highest rate recorded since the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) started in 2008.
There have been many indications that offices were slowly coming back to life over the past few months but Stats SA has now confirmed that more people were no longer working from home.
This was revealed in the Quarterly Labour Force Survey Results for the first quarter of 2021 on Tuesday.
This is the highest the figure has been since the start of the QLFS in 2008.
Joblessness has become a fixture of the South African economy. Understanding the patterns of who is out of work and for how long is key to designing policies to address the problem.
Several small gatherings, in line with COVID-19 regulations, were expected to take place around the country to highlight challenges such as unemployment which now sits at 32.5%.
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.
