The unemployment rate for the second quarter of 2017 has remained unchanged at 27.7 percent quarter-to-quarter, but increased by 1.1 percentage points year-on-year, Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) said on Monday.

StatsSA released the results of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) on Monday, which indicated that employment in the second quarter of 2017 declined by 113 000 to approximately 16.1-million.

However, the number of job-seekers also declined by 37 000 to approximately 6.2-million resulting in the unemployment rate remaining unchanged.

StatsSA said the net quarterly employment decline of 113 000 in the second quarter was driven by six of the ten industries, with the largest decreases were recorded in construction and agriculture. However, employment gains were observed in trade, finance, manufacturing and utilities.

The number of employed persons decreased in five of the nine provinces between the first and second quarters, with the largest employment losses recorded in Gauteng, and Eastern Cape, while Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal recorded employment gains of 32 000 and 29 000 respectively.

StatsSA said young people aged 15-24 remained vulnerable in the labour market with an unemployment rate of almost 56 percent and absorption rate of 12 percent.

Among those in this age group, 32.3 percent were not in employment, education or training, this is approximately 3.3 million young people.

The expanded unemployment rate which includes an extra 3.1-million persons who were available to work but did not look for work during the reference period increased by 0.2 of a percentage point to 36.6 percent.

StatsSA said this was approximately 9.3-million people aged 15-64 who wanted to work and were available to work but their labour was not utilised.