Latest unemployment figures show that South Africa’s official joblessness rate is now 32.5%. This is the highest level recorded by the Quarterly Labour Force Survey, which was first published by Stats SA in 2008.
Over 7 million South Africans are now unemployed.
The unemployment numbers reflect the situation in the last quarter of 2020.
If those who would like to work but have given up looking for work – so-called discouraged workseekers – are included, then unemployment is a staggering 42.6%.
Over a third of black South Africans are unemployed, a quarter of Coloured people, some 12% of Indian South Africans, and eight percent of whites.
The Western Cape has the lowest unemployment rate, measured on both the official and expanded measures. On the official measure, 22.5% of people living in the Western Cape are unemployed and 26.8% on the expanded measure.
The Eastern Cape has the highest unemployment on both those measures. Nearly 48% of people in the Eastern Cape are unemployed according to the official measure and 52.4% on the expanded definition.
The Free State is the only other province, apart from the Western Cape, to have an expanded unemployment rate of below 40%, at 39.9%.
IRR analysts have warned that the continuing mass unemployment will have serious implications for South African social and political stability and that the government’s primary focus must be the creation of jobs.