Unemployment hits over 35%

Estimated reading time: 4 minute(s)

Photo: Google

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) has once again published a report of bad news which was pretty much clear for everyone to see, though it has not been formal.

Statistician General Risenga Maluleka yesterday said that the unemployment in the country has yet again continued to go up and this time is the highest since they started conducting reports in 2008.

Stats SA said that this time around the unemployment rate, according to the narrow definition of unemployment, increased to 35.3% at the end of 2021.

The report also suggested that there are about 7.9 million unemployed persons in SA, despite their best efforts to find employment. Most of which are young people in the main.

“Some young people have been discouraged with the labour market and they are also not building on their skills base through education and training – they are not in employment, education or training.

“There were about 10.2 million young people aged 15 to 24 years in quarter four of 2021, of which 32.8% were not in employment, education or training,” read the report.

Youth aged 15-24 years and 25-34 years recorded the highest unemployment of 66,6% and 43,5% respectively.