June 24 (Bloomberg) -- South African non-farm jobs rose at a slower pace in the first quarter as power outages slashed mining and manufacturing output.

Employment in the formal non-agricultural industry rose 0.1 percent, or 8,000, to 8.42 million from the previous three months, the Pretoria-based statistics office said on its Web site today. Job growth slowed from 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter.

Eskom Holdings Ltd., the state-owned power utility, ran short of supplies in January, forcing gold and platinum mines to shut for five days. Further supply restrictions on mines and some manufacturers, as well as power cuts to cities, caused economic growth to slump to 2.1 percent in the first quarter, the slowest pace in more than six years. That is undermining jobs growth in a country where almost one in four people are out of work.

``The pace of jobs growth has moderated quite a bit,'' said Adenaan Hardien, chief economist at Cadiz African Harvest Asset Management in Cape Town. ``The economy certainly is slowing down.''

South Africa's unemployment rate of 23 percent is the highest of 61 countries tracked by Bloomberg. The government is aiming to cut the rate to 14 percent by 2014.

Six interest rate increases in the past year have also crimped consumer spending, undermining economic growth and jobs. The central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate by 3 percentage points since June last year to 12 percent to bring inflation back into the 3 percent to 6 percent target range.

Employment in the wholesale and retail trade industry plunged by 1.7 percent, or 30,000, in the first quarter, the statistics office said. Manufacturing lost 4,000 jobs, mainly in the motor- vehicle industry, while employment in the electricity, gas and water supply industry fell by 1,000.

Financial services, the second-biggest employer in the economy, added 14,000 jobs in the quarter, while employment in transport and community services also rose, the statistics office said.

Statistics South Africa will publish the unemployment data for the formal and informal sectors of the economy for the first quarter on Aug. 28.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nasreen Seria in Johannesburg nseria@bloomberg.netMike Cohen in Cape Town at mcohen21@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 24, 2008 11:43 EDT