South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 25.6% in the second quarter, from 25.2% in the previous quarter, with the number of unemployed people increasing by 122 000, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said in its latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) on Tuesday.

It put the number of unemployed people at 4.73-million – the highest level recorded since the QLFS started in 2008.

“Since the first quarter of 2008, unemployment levels have been fluctuating in certain quarters, but the trend has been upwards. The lowest level of unemployment was observed in the fourth quarter of 2008, at 3.9-million people, while this quarter’s number is the highest,” the statistics agency said.

This was largely attributed to an increase in the labour force, which saw 222 000 people join in the three months between April and June 2013, bringing the total available labour force in the country to 18.45-million.

Stats SA further revealed that the number of employed persons increased by 100 000, as the formal and informal sectors saw an increase in employment by 109 000 persons and 30 000 persons respectively.

This, however, was offset by decreased employment in agriculture and private households, which shed 26 000 and 12 000 jobs respectively, which the Nedbank Economic Unit believed was evidence that the local economy was struggling to gain momentum.

Evaluating year-on-year comparisons, the QLFS observed that employment had increased by 2%, or 274 000 jobs, compared with the second quarter of last year, while unemployment had increased by a larger 5.7%, or 254 000 jobs.

Employment gains in the second quarter of the year were largely concentrated in the construction industry, which added 62 000 jobs over the period, as well as in the finance and trade industries, which added 37 000 and 52 000 people to the payroll respectively, which Nedbank said was largely attributable to government’s increased infrastructure spend.

In contrast, the community and social sciences, agriculture and the manufacturing industries shed the most jobs following good performances in the first quarter, losing 22 000 people, 26 000 people and 18 000 people respectively.

Between the first and second quarters, employment declined only in the Gauteng province, while employment in the Western Cape remained flat at 1.81-million people.

Notable employment increases over the three months were observed in Mpumalanga (33 000), North West (17 000), Limpopo (17 000) and KwaZulu-Natal (14 000).

The number of discouraged work-seekers between the first and second quarters increased by 35 000, while that of persons not economically active decreased by 145 000, resulting in a net decrease of 110 000 among the economically inactive population.

In addition, the number of discouraged work-seekers increased by 2.3% year-on-year, or 54 000 people.

Nedbank expected the unemployment rate to remain high in the short term, as firms remained cautious of expanding capacity and employing more people in the current challenging economic and labour environment.

“Employment is likely to be driven mainly by the public sector as it rolls out its infrastructure programme,” the bank said in a statement.

However, it averred that, although recent indicators showed that demand-driven inflation remained contained, risks to the inflation outlook were still on the upside.

“This, along with the poor economic growth outlook, is likely to persuade the reserve bank to maintain its accommodative monetary policy stance well into 2014,” it commented.