SA’s unemployment rate increases to 25.5%

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s unemployment rate increased to 25.5 percent of the labour force in the second quarter of 2014, from 25.2 percent in Q1, data showed on Tuesday.

In its quarterly labour force survey, which polls households, Statistics South Africa said this amounted to 5.154 million people without work in the second quarter, up from 5.067 million in the previous three months. The manufacturing sector lost 93,000 jobs in Q2 compared with the same period last year.

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, was at 35.6 percent in the second quarter from 35.1 percent previously.