South Africa’s unemployment rate decreased significantly during the third quarter of 2024, according to the latest data released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) on Tuesday.
According to Stats SA’s quarterly Labour Force Survey results, there was an increase of 294 000 in the number of people employed to 16.9 million in the third quarter of the year.
“There was a decrease of 373 000 in the number of unemployed persons to eight million. This resulted in a decrease of 79 000 (down by 0.3%) in the labour force during the same period,” Stats SA said.
Discouraged work-seekers increased by 160 000 (up by 5.0%), and the number of individuals who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement increased by 54 000 (up by 0.4%) between the second quarter and third quarter of 2024. This led to an increase of 214 000 in the number of the not economically active population to 16.5 million.
“The above changes in employment and unemployment resulted in the official unemployment rate decreasing by 1.4 percentage points from 33.5% in the second quarter of 2024 to 32.1% in the third quarter of 2024,” said Stats SA.
The expanded unemployment rate in the third quarter of 2024 decreased by 0.7 of a percentage point to 41.9% when compared with the second quarter of the year.
