PRETORIA – SOUTH AFRICA’s official unemployment rate rose by 3,1%
between February and September last year, Statistics SA said on
Tuesday.
Its fourth half-yearly Labour Force Survey indicated an
official unemployment rate of 29,5% in September, compared
to 26,4% six months earlier.
The figure for September 2000 was 25,8% and in February
of that year it was 26,7%.
Unlike fluctuations recorded until February 2001, which Statistics SA
said could be attributed to sampling errors, the latest increase
are described as statistically significant.
The survey was done through interviews with about 70 000 people of
working age in 30 000 households.
From those findings, Statistics SA concluded that 4,5-million
South Africans were jobless in September 2001.
Statistics SA ascribed the drop in the official employment rate
mainly to the decrease in the number of workers employed in the
informal sector and in the subsistence and small-scale agricultural
sector.
The unemployment rate among women was 33,3% and among men 26,1% in September 2001. African women, with a jobless rate of 39,8%, were worst off and white men, with only 4,9%, were best off.
The Northern Province’s 36,1% was the highest rate,
followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 33,5% and the Eastern Cape
with 32%. Only the Western Cape, with 14,4% unemployment, was
below the 25% level. – Sapa