SA’s unemployment rate rises to 25.2% in Q1 2014

PRETORIA (Reuters) – South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 25.2 percent of the labour force in the first quarter of 2014 from 24.1 percent in Q4, data showed on Monday.

In its quarterly labour force survey, which polls households, Statistics South Africa said this amounted to 5.067 million people without work in the first quarter, up from 4.83 million in the previous three months.

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, was at 35.1 percent in the first quarter from 34.0 previously.