Mayor Herman Mashaba on Thursday announced that the City had created "109,000 new jobs in the first two quarters of 2018 and reduced the expanded unemployment rate from 32.3% to 30.8%".

Mashaba said the development was first reported in the Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Stats SA earlier this week.

"Unfortunately, this growth in Johannesburg has taken place at a time when we must sympathise with the 418,000 more people joining the ranks of the unemployed nationally, and 115,000 more in Gauteng over the same period," lamented the mayor.

He added, "change that creates jobs is taking root in Johannesburg and a greater degree of business confidence is developing".

The mayor said the City has achieved a record R8.7 billion in investment in the 2017/18 financial year, which he said exceeded "our targets by more than R3 billion".