JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's unemployment rate increased from 23.7 percent in 2009 to 25.3 percent in 2015, according to data released on Tuesday.
During the period, the number of long-term unemployed persons increased by 828, 000, accounting for 88 percent of the increase in the total number of the unemployed, Statistics South Africa said in its Labour Market Dynamics report.
Those who have been unemployed for more than five years increased from just over one million to 1.5 million over the period, said the report.
Meanwhile, the share of youth employed in the formal sector declined from 72 percent in 2009 to 70.3 percent in 2015, while the share of those employed in private households decreased from 6.4 percent to 5.3 percent and the share of those in the informal sector increased from 16.4 percent to 17.9 percent.
Nationally, 50.9 percent of unemployed youth had no previous work experience. Gauteng Province (56.5 percent) has the highest proportion of unemployed youth with no work experience, whilst Northern Cape (35.4 percent) had the lowest.
