South Africa’s unemployment rate is now highest in the world

The unemployment rate, which includes people who have stopped seeking work, rose to 44.4 percent in the second quarter.

South Africa’s unemployment rate surged to the highest on a global list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg. The jobless rate rose to 34.4% in the second quarter from 32.6% in the three months through March, Statistics South Africa said Tuesday in a report released in the capital, Pretoria. The median of three economists’ estimates in a Bloomberg survey was 33.2%. Unemployment according to the expanded definition, which includes people who were available for work but not looking for a job, rose to 44.4% from 43.2% in the first quarter. While the unemployment rate is now the highest of the countries tracked by Bloomberg, the data from some of those nations is outdated.