Cosatu said on Friday it was disappointed by the SARB's decision to keep the repo rate unchanged at five percent.

"The committee has missed yet another opportunity to save and create jobs by giving a boost to growth and investment and to encourage emerging businesses," Congress of SA Trade Unions spokesman Patrick Craven said in a statement.

"Unemployed workers in particular will be dismayed at yet another conservative monetary policy decision, based on a groundless fear of rising inflation, when by far the biggest problem in our economy is the crisis of massive unemployment and widespread poverty."

SA Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus said on Thursday that the bank's monetary policy committee was concerned about the deteriorating outlook for the South African economy.

Risks included difficult labour relations, increased wage settlements, higher electricity prices, and a volatile rand.

Craven said it was "worrisome" that the decision came soon after Statistics SA's Quarterly Labour Force Survey found the number of unemployed people increased by 100,000 to 4.6 million between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013.

"[The] MPC appears to live in a different world, and clearly cannot, or will not, see the devastating consequences of their slavish adherence to discredited monetary policies, based on a misguided fear of inflation," Craven said.

He took exception to Marcus's call for restraint in wage increases, and her comments that the slow pace of employment in the private sector was undermined by the "fractious nature of recent wage negotiations".