South Africa: The lights were on, yet South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 33.5% in Q2, edging back towards record high – Stats SA

Eskom kept the lights on from April to June, but that was not enough of an economic jolt to arrest the swelling ranks of the unemployed. 

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday that the unemployment rate climbed to 33.5% during the period from 32.9% in Q1, when the economy shrank 0.1%. This brings the rate to within two percentage points of the record high of 35.3% recorded in the last quarter of 2021. 

Under the expanded definition, which includes discouraged job seekers,…