The official unemployment rate has decreased 1.3 percentage points from 33.2% in the second quarter to 31.9% in the third quarter, thanks to 248,000 jobs created during the period.
That pushed the number of employed people to 17.1-million.
The formal, informal and household sectors did the heavy lifting, employing about 12-million, 4-million and 1.1-million people respectively.
The largest increases in employment were recorded in the construction industry (130,000), followed by community and social services (116,000) and trade (108,000).
Industries that were hard hit were manufacturing (62,000), followed by finance (54,000), utilities (30,000) and transport (3,000).
In a media briefing on Tuesday to announce the results of the quarterly labour force survey (QLFS) for the third quarter of 2025, statistician-general Risenga Maluleke said there was a decrease of 360,000 in the number of unemployed people to 8-million.
“Consequently, the labour force decreased by 112,000 (0.4%) from the second and third quarters of 2025.”
Stats SA has changed the name of the “not economically active” population to “outside the labour force” with additional terms on “potential labour force”.
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