South Africa's unemployment rate slightly drops in Q2

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.

BREAKING: Slight drop in unemployment rate https://t.co/A2zUVRyAhx via Fin24 #unemployment in #SouthAfrica is now at 26.6%

— Zenzo L (ZenzoLusengo) July 28, 2016

The survey, which polls households indicated that nearly 5.63 million people were without jobs in the second quarter, compared with 5.72 million in the first quarter.

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.

Reuters