Labour Law Specialist Andrew Levy says the unemployment rate is largely expected to be elevated in the fourth quarter of 2022.
This comes as Statistics South Africa prepares to release that period’s job numbers in its Quarterly Labour Force Survey.
The official unemployment rate decreased by 1% from 33.9% in the second quarter, to 32.9% in the third quarter of 2022.
According to the expanded definition, a person need not be actively searching for work to be classified as unemployed.
Unemployment decreased by 1% in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.
Levy says government needs to quickly implement short-term measures to address the high unemployment in the country.
Levy says, “We need to make sure that the government plans for training and upskilling by the Skills Development Act, it actually does something that will help us but that help is not immediate.”
He has lamented issues like the load shedding crisis as some of the issues making it difficult for the country to improve its economy and fight unemployment.
“The problem is we need this economy to grow and problems like load shedding, and problems like greylisting in terms of being a place where it’s unsafe to transact with funds (aren’t helping).”
In the third quarter of last year the number of unemployed persons in the country decreased by 269 000 to reach 7,7 million.
Source: SABC News
