Addressing unemployment remains a top priority, says Minister in the Presidency for Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Jeff Radebe.

“Cabinet reassures South Africans that addressing unemployment remains government’s top priority. While public employment programmes continue to yield results, Cabinet calls on all the social partners to work with government to intensify efforts to create jobs and finding short and long term solutions to the challenge of unemployment,” the Minister said on Thursday.

He was briefing reporters in Cape Town, following Cabinet’s fortnightly briefing.

Last week, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) announced that the country’s unemployment rate decreased slightly from 25.5% in the second quarter to 25.4% in the third quarter.

“Cabinet noted the Quarterly Labour Force Survey which showed official unemployment during the third quarter of this year at 25.4% up from 24.7% in the same period a year ago highlighting the need for optimal economic performance so that we are able to address the triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality,” said Radebe.

The survey, which polls households, found that the number of employed people increased by 22 000 in the third quarter.

In the third quarter of 2014, the number of unemployed people decreased slightly by 3 000 to 5.2-million.