South Africa breached the 35% barrier in unemployment with the country seeming to be shedding jobs in key industries.
In the fourth quarter of last year, the country’s unemployment rate surged from 34.9% to 35.3%.
This is the highest it’s been since the 2008 global financial crisis.
The largest decreases in employment were recorded in manufacturing and construction, which lost 85,000 and 25,000 jobs respectively.
Statistician General Risenga Maluleke said they had identified a trend over the years: “Manufacturing does fluctuate quarter on quarter. The one that has been depressed over sometime is the area of construction as the industry has been consistently losing jobs.”
He said 143,000 more people were employed in the formal sector: “The formal sector has always been showing a bit of recovery.”