Statistics South Africa's quarterly labor force survey was released on Tuesday. Despite economic development during the same period, the number of unemployed persons continued to rise in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to the data.
Statistics South Africa released the results of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the fourth quarter of 2021 on Tuesday. The official unemployment rate reaches a new high of 35.3% in the fourth quarter of 2021. It's the highest rate since QLFS began in 2008.
This research looks at the labor market activities of people aged 15 to 64, and the results show a 0.3% increase from the third quarter of 2021. Manufacturing (85 000 jobs lost), construction (25 000), and utilities (14 000) also saw decreases.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, the number of employed people climbed by 262 000 to 14,5 million, while the number of jobless people increased by 278 000 to 7,9 million, compared to the third quarter of 2021.
The QLFS for the fourth quarter of 2002 was supposed to be out in February. However, some data quality issues prompted a postponement "to provide time for some quality checks before the findings can be published," according to Statistics South Africa. "The main issue was response rates, which have been dropping over time since the advent of Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI)," says the report.
