Without further ado, these are provinces with the highest unemployment rate ranked from bad to worst.
Limpopo β 20.3%
Western Cape β 20.4%
KwaZulu-Natal β 26.1%
Northern Cape β 29.4%
Gauteng β 31.1%
North West β 33.0%
Free State β 34.4%
Mpumalanga β 34.7%
Eastern Cape β 35.4%
Seven out of the nine provinces in SA saw increases in unemployment, the largest being in the North West. Although Eastern Cape has seen gains in reducing unemployment in Q1 (37.4%) compared to Q2 (35.4%), it is still regarded as the province with the highest unemployment rate.
From the observed working-age population, Stats SA found that due to the increased number of unemployed persons in Q2, the unemployment rate has shot up by 1.4 percentage points to 29.0%.