South Africa’s unemployment rate has fell to 34.5% in the first quarter of 2022 from 35.3% in the final quarter of last year, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) announced.
Stats SA said the number of unemployed was standing at7.862 million people in the three months to end-March, compared with 7.921 million people in the previous three months.
According to an expanded definition of unemployment that includes those discouraged from seeking work, 45.5% of the labour force was without work in the first quarter, from 46.2% in the prior quarter.
As per Stats SA’s report, 14.9 million individuals were employed during the first quarter of 2022 which is an increase from the 14.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.
In addition, some 60,000 of South Africa’s 7.9 million unemployed citizens re-entered the workforce this quarter.
Black South African women and youth were most affected by unemployment during 2021’s fourth quarter – as per the report that was released on 29 March 2022.
Unemployment among Black African women skyrocketed to 42,4% during Q4 – approximately 4.2 percentage points higher than the national average.
South Africa’s economy rebounded quicker than expected from the COVID-19 pandemic last year, but growth in 2022 is expected to slow to a meagre 1.7% according to the central bank’s latest forecast.
