PRETORIA - South Africa’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 27.7% of the labour force in the third quarter from the second quarter, data from the statistics office showed on Tuesday.
Statistics SA also noted that this is still at a record high level last seen in 2003.
In its quarterly labour force survey, which polls households, Statistics South Africa said this amounted to 6.2 million people without jobs in the three months to end September, compared with 6.177 million people previously.
This showed that the labour force survey showed a 92 000 growth in employment in the third quarter as well.
This figure number was offset by 33 000 additional job seekers for that period.
The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, rose slightly to 36.8% in the third quarter, from 36.6% in the previous quarter.
Stats SA said that while unemployment remained at 27.7%, it is 0.6 percentage point higher than compared to the third quarter last year.
The latest figures show that 6.2 million South Africans are currently without work.
15 million people within this figure are non-economically active people in the country.
2.4 million were described as discouraged work seekers. This means that there is a increase of 75 000 people from the second quarter of 2017.
The biggest contributors to job growth in South Africa was in the finance and other business sectors (68 000) and the community, social and personal services sectors (56 000).
However, altogether 105 000 jobs were lost in the agriculture, manufacturing, construction sectors.