JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's unemployment rate rose by 1.3 percentage points to 25.2 percent in the first quarter of this year as the economy was shedding more jobs, according to data released by Statistics SA (SSA) on Tuesday.

The SSA attributed the rise to an increase in labor force and a decline in employment.

An additional 207, 000 people, including new market entrants, have entered the labor market since last year, pushing the labor force participation rate to 54.7 percent, the agency said in a quarterly labor force survey.

About 4.5 million people were unemployed in the first quarter, an increase of 282,000 people. Of these, 3.1 million (67.8 percent) had been looking for work for at least a year, according to the survey.

The economy shed 75, 000 jobs in the period, with construction and manufacturing having declined by 6.7 percent and 3.7 percent respectively from the last quarter, the survey showed.

Meanwhile, 28, 000 jobs were lost in the informal sector, said the survey.