South Africa’s unemployment soars 60% in a decade

South Africa’s jobless rate rose to a near record in the second quarter of 2024, continuing a trend that has seen the number of unemployed people grow by more than 60 percent in ten years, official data showed Tuesday.

The unemployment rate hit 33.5 percent between April and June, up by 0.6 percentage point from the previous quarter, national statistics agency StatsSA said.

That is close to the record 35.3 percent reached in 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic.

About 8.4 million people were out of work, up from 5.2 million in 2014, it said.

Including people who have given up looking for work, the jobless rate was a staggering 42.6 percent, up from 41.9 percent in the first quarter, StatsSA added.

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The number of people working in the formal sector was down but informal sector employment was up by 100,000 or 3.3 percent over the same period last year, it added.

The new figures were the first to be released since elections in May brought in a new coalition government that has put boosting the country’s sluggish economy top of the agenda.

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Unemployment was a key political issue in the vote that saw the long-ruling African National Congress lose its absolute majority in parliament for the first time in three decades.

The difficulty to find jobs has in the past fueled protests as well as anti-foreigner sentiment.

Young people in particular lament the lack of prospects in what is usually regarded as Africa’s most industrialized economy.