Unemployment benefits rise 10,000 in first week of lockdown

Thu, 09 Apr 2020

First evidence of the impact of the covid-19 national lockdown emerged today, with some 10,700 Jobseeker benefits approved between March 30 and April 3, the first full week of the shutdown.Minister of Social Development Carmel Sepuloni told Parliament's pandemic response select committee that figure was likely to be the tip of the iceberg, but she pushed back on some economic forecasters' fears that unemployment could go as high as 30 percent of the workforce.She told the committee that Treasury forecasts being prepared for release next...

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