South Africa’s unemployment rate keeps worsening – a threat to socio-economic and political stability

SOUTH AFRICA - Report 13 Nov 2019 by Iraj Abedian

It is common knowledge that South Africa’s economy has been struggling for some time now, and the country’s chronic unemployment problem has only worsened, with unemployment rates perpetually recording new highs. The unemployment rate currently stands at 29.1% (Q3 2019), registering the highest rate recorded since the start of Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey. Consequently, South Africa faces a myriad of socio-economic issues that are exacerbated when unemployment is rising.

Considering that the official unemployment rate does not include those who are deemed to be "discouraged" work seekers, the South African unemployment situation is even more dire than the official definition of unemployment reveals. The discouraged work seekers are classified by Stats SA as those individuals who, although wanting to work and/or start a business, are not employed during the reference period, but did not search for work in the preceding four weeks - the reason being that they couldn’t find employment, and therefore lost hope of finding work. When these discouraged work seekers are included in the country’s unemployment rate, i.e., in the expanded definition, the unemployment level goes up to a staggering 38.5% (Q3 2019).

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