Nigeria has the third highest unemployment rate at 33.3 per cent, while South Africa has the highest rate among a list of 82 countries, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

According to the report, South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 34.4 per cent in the second quarter from 32.6 per cent.

Naimbia has the second highest unemployment rate rises at 33.4 per cent, the report said.

According to the Bloomberg report, the median of three economists’ estimates in a survey was 33.2 per cent.

Jordan occupied the fourth nation at 25.0 per cent, with Costa Rica appearing as the fifth nation with an unemployment rate of 18.1 per cent.

Unemployment, according to the expanded definition, includes people who were available for work but not looking for a job, rose to 44.4 per cent from 43.2 per cent in the first quarter.

While the unemployment rate in South Africa is now the highest among the countries tracked by Bloomberg, the data from some of the nations could be outdated.

The unemployment data in South Africa is likely to deteriorate in the third quarter because the government tightened COVID-19 curbs in the face of a third wave of infections, hindering efforts to revive an economy that shrank 7 per cent last year, the report said.

It added that rising joblessness rate could heap pressure on authorities to extend relief measures that would complicate efforts to stabilise public finances.

There was also an eruption of deadly riots in July in the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, two key economic hubs, which claimed 354 lives and saw thousands of businesses looted and shuttered, the report said.

The unrest cost the country about $3.3bn in lost output and placed at least 150,000 jobs at risk, according to the South African Property Owners Association.

The unemployment rate in Africa’s most-industrialised economy has been above 20 per cent for at least two decades, even though output expanded by five per cent or more a year in the early 2000s.

Courtesy (excluding headline) The PUNCH

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