S. Africa sets new unemployment record of 34.9 percent

“The number of employed persons decreased by 660,000 in the third quarter of 2021 to 14.3 million” out of a total population of 59 million, StatSA said in a statement.

The official unemployment rate had stood at 34.4 percent for the previous quarter.

The report noted that 37.3 percent of women are unemployed compared with 32.9 percent for men.

Black women are 41.5 percent unemployed compared with 9.9 percent of white women.

All sectors of the economy saw job losses between the second and third quarters of 2021, except the finance sector, StatSA’s report said.

South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised economy and hit the hardest by Covid, was already in recession when the pandemic hit in March 2020.