Over a quarter of SA’s labour force unemployed

South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 26.7% in the first quarter of this year – the highest level since Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) launched the survey in 2008.

This is over 2% higher than the 24.5% figure recorded in the fourth quarter of 2015 – which means that there were 5.714 million people without jobs in the first quarter, compared with 5.2 million last year.