In South Africa: Unemployment rises to 26.7 percent in first quarter

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, was at 36.3 percent in the first three months of the year, versus 33.8 percent previously.

Men hold placards offering temporal employment services in Glenvista, south of Johannesburg, file. 

South Africa's unemployment rate rose to 26.7 percent of the labour force in the first quarter of this year from 24.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, data from the statistics office showed on Monday.

In its quarterly labour force survey which polls households, Statistics South Africa said this amounted to 5.714 million people without jobs in the first quarter compared with 5.2 million previously.

Analysts polled by Reuters expected the unemployment rate to edge up to 25.3 percent in the first quarter.

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, was at 36.3 percent in the first three months of the year, versus 33.8 percent previously.