Relying on the Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday, the Western Cape government was pleased with the improvement in the province's employment statistics by 14.7%, the largest quarter-on-quarter employment increase in the country.

The Western Cape Department of Finance and Economic Opportunities welcomed the news “that the unemployment rates, both on the official and expanded definitions, decreased by 2 percentage points and 2.7 percentage points, respectively, quarter-on-quarter and by 5.5 percentage points and 3.6 percentage points, respectively, year-on-year”.

The department went on to share that this represented “a decrease in the number of unemployed people by 129 000 on the official definition, and by 35 000 on the expanded definition, year-on-year.”

The creation of job opportunities in the Western Cape was an issue at the forefront of the provincial government’s agenda and in line with its ‘Growth for Jobs’ strategy, it said. 

The tenets of this strategy are based on growth and sustainability, and buoyed through the active involvement of the private sector, it added.

Given the current economic conditions that mire the potential for investments in South Africa, including the debilitating energy crisis and the recent greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force, the Western Cape government says it is committed to creating the right conditions for the private sector and for big and small businesses to succeed.