What is the expanded unemployment rate?
Stats SA's latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (Q2 2026) does not publish an "expanded" unemployment rate; its broader measure is LU3, which was 43.8% against the official 33.6%.
- LU1: Official unemployment rate33.6%
- LU2: Unemployment and time-related underemployment36.6%
- LU3: Unemployment and potential labour force43.8%
- LU4: Composite measure of labour underutilisation46.3%
Source: Stats SA, Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Quarter 2: 2026 (P0211), Table A, page 1; Concepts and definitions, page 18. Source released . Checked on SA Data Hub . Original data: Stats SA. Any calculation shown is SA Data Hub's own processing.
How this was worked out
LU3 adds the potential labour force to the unemployed: "persons who are not in the labour force, but are either available for work but not actively seeking employment or actively seeking employment but not currently available to work" (QLFS Q2 2026, page 18).
Neither the Q2 2026 nor the Q4 2025 release in SA Data Hub's files uses the word "expanded", so this page does not give a definition or a figure for it. LU3 is a different measure.