The Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the 1st Quarter of 2016 released by Statistics South Africa on Monday showed that the unemployment rate for the Eastern Cape was up from 27.4% in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 28.6%.
The expanded unemployment rate for the province now stands at 44.5%, up from 40.3% in the previous quarter - the largest increase in the country, of 4.2 percentage points.
Democratic Alliance shadow MEC for Finance Bobby Stevenson says its a huge shock to see such figures, particularly the expanded rate of unemployment.
"The focus of local and provincial government must be to ensure job creation is prioritised. Our cities and towns must be drivers of job-creating growth. Local government and provincial government must create an environment where businesses want to invest and entrepreneurs can thrive," Stevenson said.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro has consistently experienced the highest official unemployment rate of all the metros, going up again, from 30.6% in the previous quarter to 33.2% in January to March 2016.
Buffalo City was currently at 24.1%, up from 23.8% in the previous quarter.
According to Statistics South Africa employment declined by 2,2% or 355 000 in Q1: 2016, which combined with an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 521 000 resulted in an unemployment rate of 26,7%; this was 2,2 percentage points higher compared to that reported in Q4: 2015. However, on a year-on-year basis, employment was still higher in Q1: 2016 by 204 000 compared to the same period last year.
"Employment levels declined quarter-to-quarter in all industries except Community & Social services and Agriculture which grew by 51 000 and 16 000 respectively. The biggest job losses were observed in Trade (119 000), Manufacturing (100 000) and Construction (77 000)."
"Despite the quarterly increase, employment in Agriculture was lower by 15 000 compared to a year ago. The opposite pattern was observed in Mining, Construction, Trade and Finance & other business services. While employment declined quarter-to-quarter in these industries, employment levels increased on an annual basis in Mining (30 000), Construction (40 000), Trade (115 000) and by 23 000 in Finance & other business services."
"Community & social services grew both quarter-to-quarter and year-on-year while Manufacturing declined on both quarter-to-quarter (100 000) and year-on-year (141 000)."
"The expanded unemployment rate which includes those who were available to work but did not look for work in the reference period also increased by 2,5 percentage points between Q4: 2015 and Q1: 2016 to 36,3%."
