By Thys Khiba – The Statistic South Africa’s (Stats SA) Quarterly LabourForce Survey (QLFS) of the fourth quarter of 2021 confirmed black African women remain the most vulnerable to lack of jobs as unemployment in South Africa passed the 35% threshold.
Black African women are still counted as the most vulnerable, with an unemployment rate of 42,4% as Q4 of 2021 presents, 4,2 percentage is counted as higher than the national average.
Young people who are at the age of 15 and 24 years – as well as the group 25 to 34 years – recorded the highest unemployment rates (66,5% and 43,5% respectively).
According to Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke, the national unemployment grew by 0.4 of a percentage point to reach 35.3% in the final quarter (Q4) of 2021.
Meanwhile, nationally, SA now has managed to employ workforce of 14.5 million (an increase of approximately 262, 000), and unemployed persons now number 7.9 million (278,000 more since 2021 Q3).
The results were expected to be released on the 22nd February 2022 as the forthcoming issue for Quarter 1: 2022 will be released at least in May 2022. The current results show the key findings of the QLFS conducted from October to December 2021 (Q4: 2021).
“However, there were some data quality concerns that warranted the delay of the publication to allow time to do some quality checks before the results can be published. The main concern was the response rates that have been declining over time since the introduction of Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI).”
Stats SA confirmed the changes in the labour market resulted in the official unemployment rate increasing by 0.4 of a percentage point from 34.9% in Q3.
“The unemployment rate according to the expanded definition of unemployment decreased by 0.4 of a percentage point to 46.2% in quarter 4 2021 compared to quarter 3 2021,” said Maluleke.
143,000 jobs between the third and fourth quarters of 2021 in the formal sector employment increased. Meanwhile, the informal sector lost at least 48,000 jobs during the same period.
Two industries of Manufacturing and Construction were the most severely affected.
According to the SatsSA, more than 90% (92,1% during Q4) of the employed workforce continued to receive a salary during the lockdown in the fourth quarter (92,2% during Q3).
—————————————————————
DO YOU HAVE A NEWS STORY OR AN OPINION FOR CENTRAL NEWS: E-mail us : newsroom@centralnews.co.za or Whatsapp us on 0833989119