Data from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) released today showed the unemployment rate in the country shot up to 30.8% in the third quarter from 23.3% in the previous quarter.
This is the highest unemployment rate since the stats agency quarterly jobless rate data became available in 2008.
The number of unemployed people rose by 2.2 million to 6.5 million. Stats SA added that most job losses were observed in trade (400 000), manufacturing (300 000), community and social services (298 000) and construction (259 000).
“The movement was proportionately more towards the unemployed than for the employed, which resulted in a significant increase of 7,5 percentage points in the official unemployment rate to 30,8%. The unemployment rate according to the expanded definition of unemployment increased by 1,1 percentage points to 43,1% in quarter 3 2020 compared to quarter 2 2020,” the stats agency said in a statement.
