South Africa's unemployment rate increased to 24.5 percent in the quarter ended September 2009 from 23.6 percent in the second quarter, Statistics SA data showed on Thursday.

Compared to Q3 2008, there was an annual decrease of 5.6 percent (770 000) in employment, an increase of 70 000 in the number of unemployed persons and a massive increase of 1 071 000 in the number of persons who are not economically active ? 561 000 being discouraged work-seekers.

Jobs growth was reported at minus 3.6 percent quarter-on-quarter (q/q) from the minus 2.0 percent q/q seen in the second quarter.

The total number of employed people was reported to have dropped 484 000 from 267 000 in the prior quarter to 12.885 million, while the total labour force was down 418 000 (325 000) to 17.077 million.

Formal sector employment fell 283 000 to 9.073 million, and informal sector employment fell 116 000 to 1.993 million.

The data also showed that employment to population (absorption) was down 3.0 percent year-on-year (y/y). The unemployment rate increased 1.3 percent y/y.

Stats SA said that while employment fell by a substantial 484 000 from Q2 2009, this decline did not translate to a significant increase in the number of unemployed persons, but rather to the increase in the number of persons who are not economically active (510 000) with a sizeable proportion (22.5 percent) of them being discouraged work seekers.

The number of unemployed persons increased by 67 000. This resulted in a significant increase in the unemployment rate between Q2 2009 and Q3 2009.

Between Q2 2009 and Q3 2009, 484 000 jobs were lost across all industries except transport. Most of the job losses were in manufacturing, which accounted for 150 000 of the job losses, followed by trade (110 000), construction (60 000) and agriculture (57 000).

The year-on-year comparisons also show that job losses were experienced in all industries except finance and community and social services, with trade accounting for 324 000 of the job losses, followed by manufacturing (194 000), agriculture (114 000) and private households (108 000). There were some job gains in finance (50 000) and community and social services (24 000), although there was an overall decline of 770 000 in employment between Q3 2008 and Q3 2009.