Slight drop in SA's unemployment rate
14 February 2017
Cape Town - The results of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the fourth quarter of 2016 released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday indicate that employment grew by 235 000 and the number of job seekers declined by 92 000, resulting in a slight decline in the official unemployment rate by 0.6 of percentage point to 26.5%.
However, this is still 2.0 percentage points higher compared to the same period last year.
The working age population grew by 155 000 or 0.4% and the labour force grew by 143 000 persons in the fourth quarter of 2016 compared to the previous quarter. The section of the population which is not economically active rose by 12 000, of which 1 000 were discouraged work-seekers.
The growth in employment was mainly driven by the Services industry which grew by 73 000, followed by Transport and Manufacturing which grew by 46 000 and 44 000 respectively.