{"id":42110,"date":"2026-08-11T09:10:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T07:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=42110"},"modified":"2026-08-11T09:10:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T07:10:31","slug":"rand-steady-ahead-of-labour-data","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/rand-steady-ahead-of-labour-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand steady ahead of labour data"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The South African (SA) Rand was steady in early trade on Tuesday ahead of the \u200brelease of labour market data, with analysts \u200cexpecting a modest uptick in the unemployment rate after rising fuel costs and heightened uncertainty weighed on economic \u200bactivity in the second quarter of 2026.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Rand traded at 16.18 against \u2060the Dollar, little changed from its 16.1950 close.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Domestic \u200binvestors are awaiting unemployment data to gauge the condition of the labour market of Africa&#8217;s biggest economy.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Nedbank economists said in a note that the \u200blabour market data is likely to show \u200ba modest deterioration as surging fuel costs and heightened uncertainty \u200cweighed \u2060on business confidence.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;This environment appears to have encouraged firms to adopt a cautious, wait-and-see stance, delaying significant capital expenditure decisions, including hiring,&#8221; Nedbank said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>SA&#8217;s \u200bofficial jobless \u200brate currently \u2060stands at 32.7%, one of the highest globally.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The statistics agency will publish manufacturing \u200boutput with analysts \u200bpolled by \u2060<em><span class=\"x_spanWithBackgroundColor\">Reuters<\/span><\/em>\u00a0expecting a 3.8% year-on-year decrease in June, from a 4.3% year-on-year fall in May.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>SA&#8217;s \u2060benchmark \u200b2035 government bond was slightly weaker \u200bin early deals, as the yield rose 2 basis points \u200bto 8.325%.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34578,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-42110","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"SA Rand was steady in early trade on Tuesday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42111,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42110\/revisions\/42111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}