South Africa’s unemployment rate decreased by 0.4% to 24.1% during the fourth quarter of 2013, mainly owing to an increase in informal-sector employment, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday.

During the quarter the country’s employment levels rose by 141 000 jobs to 15.2-million, surpassing the peak reached during the prerecession period. The informal sector gained 123 000 jobs, most of which were on short-term contractual arrangements, which suggested that some of the job gains could be temporary in nature, Stats SA said.

“[However], despite the rise in employment, the proportion of working-age South Africans with jobs at 43.3% is still below the prerecession peak of 46.2% observed in the fourth quarter of 2008.”

Compared with the third quarter, the employment level rose in five of the ten surveyed industries.

The largest job gains were recorded in the community and social services industry, with 97 000 jobs, followed by the construction industry, which gained 59 000 jobs.

Meanwhile, job losses were the highest in the agricultural, finance and other business services industries, which lost 27 000 and 23 000 jobs respectively.

Further, year-on-year, employment increased by 653 000 during the fourth quarter of 2013, largely as a result of a 507 000 increase in the formal sector, highlighting improvements in the labour market, Stats SA said. 

Employment in the informal sector increased by 95 000 year-on-year.

Further, over the same period, the number of job seekers increased by 121 000 to 4.8-million, resulting in a year-on-year decline in the unemployment rate of 0.4% to 24.1%.

Banking group Nedbank said the unemployment rate was unlikely to reduce significantly in the short term given weak domestic demand, rising input costs, labour disputes, significant infrastructure constraints and other regulatory issues in some of the key sectors.

“Today's figures suggest that the weak economy is still struggling to reduce the unemployment rate significantly. The growth outlook is still fragile. Simultanously, recent other indicators suggest that inflation is still contained, but the outlook has deteriorated owing to the weaker rand.  To contain the inflationary pressures, we expect that the Reserve Bank will raise rates once more in March before keeping them on hold well into 2015,” Nedbank said.