There were 6.1 million people without jobs in the three months to the end of December, compared with 6.2 million people in the prior quarter, Statistics South Africa said its quarterly labour force survey.

The statistics office said employment rose in the finance, private households, manufacturing and mining sectors.

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, fell to 37.0 percent in the fourth quarter from 37.3 percent in the previous quarter.