Unemployment rate falls to 27.1% in Q4

South Africa’s unemployment rate fell to 27.1% in the fourth quarter from 27.5% in the third quarter, official data showed on Tuesday.

There were 6.1 million people without jobs in the three months to the end of December, compared with 6.2 million people in the prior quarter, Statistics South Africa said its quarterly labour force survey.

The statistics office said employment rose in the finance, private households, manufacturing and mining sectors.

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, fell to 37.0% in the fourth quarter from 37.3% in the previous quarter.