The provided evidence for this claim consists only of dictionary definitions of the word 'official'. No statistical data was found in the evidence to confirm or deny the specific percentages (42.5% to 44.6%).

While a web search result from dailydispatch.co.za mentions 'Eastern Cape sheds a further 43,000 jobs', the specific timeframe mentioned in the claim (October 2025 to first quarter of the following year) is not explicitly detailed in the provided evidence snippets, though the headline corroborates the job loss figure.

The evidence provided for this claim discusses HIV statistics in SA, unemployment in Kenya, and general population of East Africa. None of the sources provide the employment figure for the Eastern Cape.

The provided evidence includes general unemployment trends for South Africa and Canada, but does not contain the specific expanded unemployment figures (49% to 54.4%) for the Eastern Cape.

The evidence discusses general unemployment rates in South Africa but does not provide a comparative analysis of year-on-year increases across provinces to confirm the Eastern Cape was the highest.

One search result mentions a province with the lowest labour absorption rate at 31.6%, but it does not explicitly name the Eastern Cape in that specific sentence, and the claim's figure (28.7%) is not found in the evidence.