South Africa Unemployment Rises to Record as More Look For Jobs
- Unemployment rate climbs to 32.5% in fourth quarter from 30.8%
- Official number of unemployed rose 701,000 to 7.2 million
Restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus forced some businesses to cut wages, reduce staff or shut permanently.
Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/BloombergSouth Africa’s unemployment rate climbed to a record in the fourth quarter as more people started to look for jobs in an economy that was ravaged by lockdown restrictions to curb the impact of the coronavirus.
The jobless rate rose to 32.5% from 30.8% in the previous three months, Statistics South Africa said Tuesday in a report released in the capital, Pretoria. That’s the highest number on record. The median estimate of five economists in a Bloomberg survey was 31.5%. Unemployment according to the expanded definition, which includes people who were available for work but not looking for a job, fell to 42.6% from 43.1% in the previous quarter.