Three quarters in a row of reduction in unemployment is good news: Labour expert

A labour expert Tony Healy has described the decline in South Africa’s unemployment rate during the third quarter as good news.

Data that Statistics South Africa released on Tuesday shows that the rate of unemployment decreased from 33.9 % in the second quarter to 32.9 % in the third quarter of the year.

Unemployment Stats | Job market trends as unemployment rate falls to 32.9% in the third quarter

Statistics show that 204 000 jobs were created between the second and the third quarter of the year, taking the total number of persons employed to 15.8 million.

The largest job gains came from manufacturing, trade, and construction and transport sectors.

Healy says that the figures are encouraging.

“Yes we must be encouraged that it’s three quarters in a row now that we’ve had a reduction in the unemployment rate- especially in light of the fact that we have the Eskom, outage issues. I guess it’s got to be good news, the reality is unfortunately that we still have nearly 12- million unemployed, and that really is a serious national crisis.”

Labour consultant Tony Healy on latest unemployment stats