Economy continued to shed more jobs, report shows

Unemployment in SA remained high in the second quarter of 2016 — falling just 0.1 of a percentage point to 26.6%, Statistics SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey showed on Thursday.

That meant 5.6-million people were unemployed.

The economy shed 129,000 jobs in the second quarter, mainly due to losses in the services (127,000), agriculture (44,000), transport (39,000) and mining (24,000) sectors, and more people gave up looking for work.

Statistician-general Pali Lehohla said the latest jobs data pointed to the difficult economic situation facing SA.

“The question that has to be asked is, are the strategies adequate to deal with this matter (unemployment) … and what is to be done?” Lehohla said.

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