Unemployment stats: Good news as more than 200 000 jobs gained in SA

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) released the results of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) on Tuesday for the third quarter of 2022 with a strong and positive outlook.

Between the second and third quarter of 2022, 204 000 jobs were gained. The total number of people employed in South Africa was 15.8 million in the third quarter of 2022.

The number of unemployed people decreased by 269 000 to 7.7 million.

The number of discouraged work-seekers also decreased by 54 000 to 3.5 million when compared to the previous quarter.

The number of people who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement increased by 264 000 between the two quarters resulting in a net increase of 210 000 in the not economically active population.

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Unemployement rate decreases by 1%

The QLFS results from Stats SA showed the official unemployment rate decreasing by 1.0 percentage point from 33.9% in the second quarter of 2022 to 32.9% in the third quarter.

The unemployment rate according to the expanded definition of unemployment also decreased by 1.0 percentage point to 43.1% in the third quarter.

The manufacturing (123 000), trade (82 000), construction (46 000) and transport (33 000) industries recorded the largest job gains, while job losses were recorded in finance (80 000), private households (36 000) as well as mining and agriculture (1 000) each.

Sectors that recorded job increases were the formal and informal with 235 000 and 6 000 respectively.

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