STORY: South Africa's unemployment rate decreases by 1.4 percentage points in Q3
SHOOTING TIME: Nov. 12, 2024
DATELINE: Nov. 14, 2024
LENGTH: 0:01:06
LOCATION: Pretoria
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. SOUNDBITE (English): RISENGA MALULEKE, South Africa's Statistician-General

STORYLINE:

South Africa's official unemployment rate decreased by 1.4 percentage points in the third quarter of this year on a quarter-on-quarter basis, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday.
   
According to the Quarterly Labor Force Survey for the third quarter, released by Stats SA on Tuesday, the country's official unemployment rate declined from 33.5 percent in the second quarter of this year to 32.1 percent in the third quarter. 

Meanwhile, the expanded unemployment rate in the third quarter decreased by 0.7 percentage point to 41.9 percent when compared with the second quarter of this year.

South Africa's Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke reported an increase of 294,000 in employed persons, bringing the total to 16.9 million in the third quarter.

SOUNDBITE (English): RISENGA MALULEKE, South Africa's Statistician-General
"We look at young people, for example, the unemployment rate of young people aged 15 to 24 years, is sitting at 60.2 percent. When you expand the years to 34 years, 15 to 34 years, their unemployment rate is sitting at 45.5 percent. So when people are young, they do not have skills, and indeed, when they don't have skills, their unemployment rate tends to be higher. We have 10.3 million young people aged 15 to 24 years in South Africa. Of those, 3.5 million are not in employment, education, or training, and that returns a net rate of 34.2 percent. So generally you can see that young people are vulnerable to labor markets, but they are not alone. Black African women are also vulnerable to labor markets. Their unemployment rate is sitting in the region in excess of 38 percent. And of course, they are the highest in the country."

He added that the largest employment gains were in sectors such as community and social services, which created 194,000 jobs, followed by construction with 176,000 and trade with nearly 110,000. However, some key sectors experienced declines, with finance losing 189,000 jobs, private households decreasing by 32,000, manufacturing by 20,000, and transport by 18,000.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Pretoria.
(XHTV)