The picture of mass unemployment evident from the 1993 Saldru household survey has perpetuated in subsequent October Household Surveys (OHS), with both narrow and broad unemployment rates climbing every year except for 1995 and 1999 (Fig. 1 below). Unemployment rates for 1999 are quoted in the range of 23.3 per cent in terms of the narrow definition, and 36.2 per cent according to the broad definition. These figures are only marginally different from those for 1997 (Stats SA, OHS 1999). Some debate has emerged about whether a definition of the unemployed should include only those jobless individuals who search (called the narrowly unemployed) or extend to those who claim they want work but are not searching (these are unemployed on the broad definition only).