The last time Sanele Nyambose received a salary was two years ago. A graduate, she did not imagine the dry spell would last so long. The frustration of being unemployed is mounting. "Sometimes I don't even want to look at my graduation photos because they just make me sick," the 29-year-old said this week.Anazi Zote graduated from a top university in the Eastern Cape and pursued postgraduate studies at a leading Gauteng-based institution. But her qualifications are proving useless as job application after application is met with failure , sapping her self-esteem."I think I've wasted a whole four years. I could have gone and travelled with that kind of [tuition] money ... I thought I was doing the responsible thing by getting an education. But right now I feel like I've just wasted my time," Zote, 25, said this week.story_article_left1South Africa's depressed economy is battling to deliver jobs that will cut the unemployment rate, which grew to 26.7% in the first quarter of 2016.Economists expect that statistics this week from the Quarterly Employment Survey, conducted among employers in the formal sector during the first quarter, will show a contraction in employment in productive sectors such as mining and manufacturing. The figures are due out tomorrow ."There is a risk that the figures will show lower employment levels, particularly in the industrial sector ... on the production side we're not looking for great numbers," said Investec economist Kamilla Kaplan.The manufacturing and mining sectors are expected to show little if any progress in job creation, particularly given lower commodity prices.Depressed business confidence has negative implications for job creation and employment . During the second quarter of this year, business confidence fell to its lowest since the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the RMB/BER Business Confidence Index published last month .Employment statistics have been on a downward trend for years. Dennis Dykes, Nedbank's chief economist, said the Quarterly Employment Survey had shown flat results since 2012."I would anticipate that it won't look all that great, given that's really been the trend."block_quotes_start There is green-shoot recovery in manu-facturing. That may be a consequence of the weakness in the exchange rate block_quotes_endWeak global demand had resulted in overcapacity in some sectors. "You would anticipate [poor figures in] areas like mining, where commodity prices have been very weak, and manufacturing, where there's a lot of excess capacity and pressure from the global situation. Those areas of the economy would certainly be under pressure," said Dykes.This week, South Africa reported its largest trade surplus since 2010, R18.7-billion for May, compared to R4.9-billion for the same period last year, due to a slight increase in exports, especially of commodities.Dykes said sectors that had performed well until now had been service-oriented. "We had anticipated that that would continue to be the case." These included the government, which "arguably shouldn't be growing quite as rapidly as it has ... but it has been relatively firm".story_article_right2He said the mining sector was expected to show a dip.Utilities, where there had been huge growth due to Eskom building power stations, may have peaked in the short term.The construction sector, retail trade and wholesale trade were expected to remain flat.Lefika Securities economist Colen Garrow said: "There is green-shoot recovery in manu-facturing. That may be a consequence of the weakness in the exchange rate. However, its strength can best be described as modest and fragile."Garrow said it was to be hoped that the tourism and hospitality industry would have created jobs due to the weakness in the rand. Jobs might also have been created to boost political support ahead of the elections next month."It will be interesting to see whether jobs have been created, in light of the upcoming local elections, but with the relaxation in travel restrictions, hopefully this could be a sector that adds jobs," he said. ..