SAFTU sees nothing in latest job statistics but further misery for the unemployed
16 May 2018
South Africa’s millions of unemployed workers will find nothing to cheer about in the employment statistics in the Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday 15 May 2018, says the South African Federation of Trade Unions.
The ‘official’ unemployment rate, which excludes those no longer looking for work, remained at 26.7% in the first quarter 2018, exactly the same as in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Despite the creation of 206 000 new jobs in the quarter, the number of persons without jobs rose by 100 000 to 5.98 million, because the working-age population increased by 153,000 or 0.4% in the first quarter of 2018 compared to the fourth quarter of 2017.
The expanded unemployment rate, which includes every worker without a job, rose by 0.4% in the first quarter, from 36.3% to 36.7%. The number of these discouraged work-seekers increased by 249,000.