CAPE TOWN: Data from South Africa’s statistics office indicates that unemployment rate in the country slightly declined to 26.6% in the second quarter of this year, from a 12-year high of 26.7% a quarter earlier. Statistics South Africa said that despite the decrease in unemployment, total employment contracted by 0.8 percent due to job losses in the service, agriculture transport and mining sectors.
Conversely, job gains were reported in manufacturing, private household and construction sectors. Youth Unemployment rate stands at 37.5 percent representing a total of 3.2 million young people
Africa’s most developed economy is on the brink of recession, after shrinking 1.2% in the first quarter.The country’s central bank said that South Africa must grow by 1% every quarter to avoid a recession in 2016.