Jobs picture worse than the official unemployment rate shows

It may seem surprising and positive that the figures released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) showed an improvement in the unemployment rate to 23.3% in the second quarter, compared with the rate of 30.1% in the first quarter, but financial services provider Nedbank believes the numbers were hampered by data collection limitations.

Trade union UASA, meanwhile, shares the cautionary view that the numbers were rather the result of the national lockdown preventing people from actively going out and looking for work, thereby classifying them as not economically active.