Unemployment holds steady, but it's not all good news
More than two-thirds of active work seekers have been looking for work for longer than a year, and the expanded unemployment rate increased
SA’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 26.7% in the first quarter of 2018 — confounding expectations for a slight deterioration. Tuesday’s outcome is a little better than the 26.9% forecast both by Investec and in the Bloomberg consensus. It is also the second time in a row that the headline rate has come in better than expected : there was a surprise decline of a full percentage point in the September-December quarter, from the historical high of 27.7%, where it spent the first three quarters of 2017. The economy added 206,000 jobs during the first quarter, Statistics SA said in the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), released on Tuesday. That was driven by increases in six of the 10 industries, with a 95,000-job increase in community and social services, 58,000 in the manufacturing sector and 40,000 in construction. Statistician-general Risenga Maluleke said: “The less educated are more likely to be unemployed.” Declines were seen in transport (41,000), mining (14,000), utiliti...
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