STATISTICS South Africa has published the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QFLS) for Q3 2021, showing how continued lockdown restrictions, load shedding and the July riots impacted jobs in the country.
The results show that the number of employed persons decreased by 660,000 in the third quarter of 2021 to 14.3 million.
By comparison, the number of unemployed persons decreased by 183,000 to 7.6 million from second quarter of 2021.
The number of discouraged work-seekers increased by 545,000 (16.4%) and the number of people who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement increased by 443,000 (3.3%) between the two quarters – resulting in a net increase of 988,000 in the not economically active population.
These changes resulted in the official unemployment rate increasing by 0.5 of a percentage point from 34.4% in the second quarter of 2021 to 34.9% in the third quarter of 2021 – the highest since the start of the QLFS in 2008.
The unemployment rate according to the expanded definition of unemployment increased by 2.2 percentage points to 46.6% over the same period.
This is the highest unemployment rate since the start of the QLFS in 2008.
The unemployment rate is up 10% over the past decade, having reached 25% in 2011.
