South Africa’s unemployment rate stood at 27.7% in the second quarter of 2017, unchanged from the previous quarter and unchanged from its 14-year high according to data from Statistics South Africa.

In its quarterly labour force survey, which polls households, Statistics South Africa said this amounted to 6.177 million people without jobs in the three months to end June, compared with 6.214 million previously, a decline of 113,000 people.  The figure reflected drops in the construction and agriculture sectors, among others. The number of people employed in the trade, finance, manufacturing and utilities sectors increased slightly.

Meanwhile, the number of formal sector jobs declined by 144,000 from the March to June period, however the informal sector added 80,000 jobs over the same period.

The figures also showed that the number of job seekers has declined by 37,000 people to approximately 6.3 million, reducing South Africa’s labour force participation rate to 59.9%, from 60.5% in the first quarter.