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Johannesburg - The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) was "shocked" by the "grim figures" contained in the Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES) survey released by Statistics SA on Tuesday.
According to the QES survey, 79 000 jobs were lost in the first quarter of 2010 in the formal non-agricultural sector.
"This comes on top of the loss of 870 000 jobs last year," Cosatu said.
"Then we were in the midst of a major recession which pushed the unemployment rate up to 25.2% - or 32.5% if you include those who have given up seeking work," Cosatu said.
In the first quarter of 2010, although South Africa's economy had expanded by an annualised rate of 4.6%, jobs were still "disappearing".
Cosatu said the "grim figures" confirmed its view that the country was in the midst of an economic crisis.
"This will make the federation more determined than ever to campaign in the short term for a substantial cut in interest rates by the Reserve Bank on July 22 to give a boost to investment, and in the longer term for a new economic growth path to enable the country to move away from the colonial/apartheid economy," the union federation said.
- Sapa