South Africa has released its second quarter unemployment figures for the year. More than two million jobs have been lost while the country was under very strict containment. The official unemployment rate has dropped to 23%, but the figure from the National Statistics Agency is misleading because it does not take into account people who have given up on job search, the broader definition of unemployment: this rate, according to the agency, rises to 42%.
Even today, although activity has gradually resumed with the abolition of containment, the country’s economy has had difficulty restarting. Times are therefore difficult for workers in the formal sector, but the informal sector has also been hit hard by the crisis.
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