{"id":13014,"date":"2012-07-31T13:50:29","date_gmt":"2012-07-31T11:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/update-1-s-africas-unemployment-high-key-sectors-struggle\/"},"modified":"2012-07-31T13:50:29","modified_gmt":"2012-07-31T11:50:29","slug":"update-1-s-africas-unemployment-high-key-sectors-struggle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-s-africas-unemployment-high-key-sectors-struggle\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-S.Africa&#8217;s unemployment high, key sectors struggle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* New jobs in formal sector, but factories shed 44,000<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Unemployment to stay high as growth remains weak<\/p>\n<p> (Adds details, reaction, background)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">PRETORIA, July 31<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s unemployment<br \/>\nrate slowed slightly in the second quarter but remained high,<br \/>\nofficial data showed on Tuesday, with key sectors like<br \/>\nmanufacturing still shedding jobs as the global economic<br \/>\ndownturn hits domestic output.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The unemployment rate was marginally lower at 24.9 percent<br \/>\nof the labour force in the in the three months to June from 25.2<br \/>\npercent in the first quarter, with news jobs created in the<br \/>\nformal sector, Statistics South Africa said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>But manufacturing, which contributes about 15 percent to the<br \/>\ngross domestic product, shed 44,000 jobs during the quarter,<br \/>\nattesting to the struggle businesses face from waning growth in<br \/>\nEurope, South Africa&#8217;s main trading partner.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The total number of unemployed people dipped to 4.47 million<br \/>\nfrom 4.5 million in the first quarter, Stats S.A. said in its<br \/>\nlatest quarterly Labour Force Survey.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes<br \/>\npeople who have stopped looking for work, also eased to 36.2<br \/>\npercent from 36.6 percent.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The official jobless rate however remains too high and there<br \/>\nis little prospect of a substantial reduction while domestic<br \/>\ngrowth remains a slave to the global economy, said Colen Garrow,<br \/>\nan independent economist at Meganomics.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Reserve Bank cut its benchmark interest rate to a<br \/>\n40-year low of 5.0 percent earlier this month to try and boost<br \/>\ngrowth but still lowered its 2012 GDP forecast to 2.7 percent &#8212;<br \/>\nin line with the Treasury &#8212; from the 2.9 percent seen in May.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* New jobs in formal sector, but factories shed 44,000 * Unemployment to stay high as growth remains weak (Adds details, reaction, background) PRETORIA, July 31 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s unemployment rate slowed slightly in the second quarter but remained high, official data showed on Tuesday, with key sectors like manufacturing still shedding jobs as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-13014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}