Trade and construction sectors the biggest contributors to SA's Q1 unemployment woes

JOHANNESBURG - The trade and construction industries contributed the most towards South Africa’s unemployment woes in the first quarter of this year.

Unemployment increased by one percentage point to 32.9% between January and March, with almost 300,000 jobs lost during this period.

Stats SA released the quarterly employment stats on Tuesday morning.

Weak economic growth due to several key factors, such as the instability in the Government of National Unity and US tariff increases, could be signs of why SA’s unemployment figures increased in the first quarter.

Stat SA’s first quarterly employment figures list the construction and trade industries as being the biggest contributors to unemployment.

Economist Dawie Roodt explained: "Part of the reason why the construction industry did badly, has to do with the bad sentiment in the economy, but also because government is probably not investing as much as they promised us they would invest in construction. And the reason why trade is so bad is because trade usually has to do with consumption expenditure, and consumption expenditure is the most important driver of economic growth in the economy."

Roodt believes the country’s first quarter GDP will also be negative, given the unemployment figures.