Johannesburg - The unemployment rate increased by 1% to 25% between the fourth quarter of 2010 and first quarter in 2011, Statistics SA said on Tuesday.
"The unemployment rate increased by one percentage point between Q4: 2010 (24%) and Q1: 2011 (25%)." Stats SA said in its labour force survey for the first quarter of 2011.
There was an increase of 3.4% (or 486 000) in the number of persons not economically active. Of these 353 000 were discouraged work-seekers.
The agency said the number of unemployed people increased by 227 000 between the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011.During the same period, the number of discouraged work-seekers increased by 73 000.
In this time, the number of people in the labour force increased by 213 000.
The formal sector gained 56 000 jobs and the informal sector lost 46 000 jobs in this quarter. Agriculture lost 24 000 jobs and employment in private households remained almost unchanged.