Finance and Economic Development MEC Alan Winde on Tuesday released the provincial economic overview for 2009.
He told the Western Cape Legislature unemployment figures showed an increase of nearly three percent.
Winde added more than 22 percent of the province's residents had no source of income.
He said the recession had less of an impact on the province in comparison to the other provinces in the country.
"Both the Coloured and African population increased their share in the labour force, to the employed. The share percentage in the employed African people had increased from 20 to 20.7 percent," said Winde.
A new study on nationalisation backs the creation of a sovereign wealth fund for windfall profits.
South Africa's biggest bank boosted headline earnings by 21 percent to R9.719bn in 2011.
New research debunks the myth that people need less income when retired than when they were working.
