Mpumalanga unemployment rate decreases by almost 3%
The Department of Economic Development and Tourism said the unemployment rate of bachelor degree graduates has decreased from 20% to below 10%.
Mpumalanga’s unemployment rate has decreased from 37.4% in the second quarter of 2024 to 34.7% in the fourth.
This is according to the Stats SA Quarterly Labour Force Survey results that were released on February 18. Despite this outcome, there are still some community members who are affected by the unemployment rate. Last Friday, they marched to the City of Mbombela offices to raise their frustrations.
The MEC for economic development and tourism, Makhosazane Masilela, expressed her excitement about the results, citing that the province has recorded an increase of 13 402 jobs in the fourth quarter of 2024.
“This is indeed great news for our province as we continue to work closely with the private sector to create the much-needed jobs for our people. We recommit to strengthening our relationship with social partners, especially businesses, to create even more jobs in the future.”
She said the economic sectors that contributed to this increase of job opportunities were agriculture, transport, communication and finance.
“The construction industry, however, struggled in the same period after a good performance in the previous quarter. The latest increase in job creation has, thus, resulted in the provincial employment level doubling over the past 30 years, to a level of 1.25 million people in quarter four of 2024.
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“Accordingly, the unemployment rates of woman and the youth have also dropped in the last quarter of last year. It is positive that the bachelor degree graduate’s unemployment rate has also decreased significantly in Mpumalanga, from almost 20% a couple of months ago, to below 10%,” Masilela said.
In November 2023, the provincial labour bulletin revealed that during the first quarter of 2023, Mpumalanga recorded the second highest unemployment increase, going from 38.5% to 49.7%. The province was also among the lowest in number of job gains among the eight provinces.
During that time, the province’s employment represented 7.2% of the South African employment number in the third quarter of 2023, which was higher than the 7.1% in the second quarter of that year, but lower than the 7.6% in the third quarter of 2022.
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