Some political parties call for rigorous measures to improve economic growth to deal with unemployment

JOHANNESBURG - Despite a marginal decrease in the unemployment rate, some political parties have called for rigorous measures to improve economic growth to deal with the crisis.

On Tuesday, Stats SA released the quarterly figures which showed a 1.4% decrease in joblessness in the country, which now stands at 32.1%.

READ: Mhlauli welcomes decrease in SA's unemployment rate

According to Stats SA, 294,000 people were employed in the third quarter of this year.

Eight million South Africans remain unemployed, 3.4 million are discouraged job seekers and 13.1 million others are not economically active.

The Good Party's Brett Herron said that despite the improvement, the unemployment rate remained stubbornly high.

"South Africa is stuck in an economic growth crisis, trapping millions of South Africans in unemployment and unacceptable levels of poverty, more especially young and black South Africans, we simply have no choice but to implement a basic income grant. As we have highlighted before, unless the country can achieve a sustained economic growth rate of 5% to 6% per annum, South Africa will not be able to meaningfully reduce unemployment."

Meanwhile, ActionSA's Alan Beesley said there were still concerns which should be addressed.

"ActionSA welcomes the slight improvement in South Africa's employment numbers. It must be noted that we remain in an unemployment crisis and bold measures are required to address the crisis. Of particular concern is the high youth unemployment which has continued to increase."