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SA’s official unemployment rate declined further in the fourth quarter of 2024, falling by 0.2 of a percentage point from the preceding three months to 31.9%, with 132,000 jobs created.
The rate fell to 32.1% in the third quarter from 33.5% previously after 294,000 jobs were created.
According to Stats SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey released in Pretoria on Tuesday, the number of employed people rose by 132,000 to 17.1-million in the fourth quarter, while the number of unemployed people decreased by 20,000 to 8-million.
Statistician-general Risenga Maluleke said the number of discouraged jobseekers increased by 111,000 to 3.5-million in the review period. The number of economically inactive people decreased to 13-million from 13.1-million.
The expanded unemployment rate in the period under review remained unchanged at 41.9%.
The North West recorded the highest expanded unemployment rate — 52.8% — followed by the Eastern Cape (47.6%), Mpumalanga (47.2%), Limpopo (46.5%), KwaZulu-Natal (44.7%), the Free State (44.2%), Gauteng (39.9%), the Northern Cape (39.7%) and the Western Cape (24.8%).
The formal sector, which accounts for 68.4% of total employment in SA, accounted for 11.7-million jobs (68.4%), informal sector employment 3.3-million (19.5%), private households 1.1-million (6.7%) and agriculture 924,000 (5.4%).
“Employment increased in all sectors between the third quarter and fourth quarters, except in agriculture, which decreased by 11,000 jobs,” Maluleke said.
Job increases were mainly recorded in the finance and manufacturing industries, which accounted for 232,000 jobs (8.5%) and 41,000 jobs (2.5%), respectively. The transport sector recorded 17,000 jobs, accounting for 1.7%.
Besides the agricultural sector, job losses were also recorded in utilities (17,000 jobs), mining (18,000), construction (22,000), trade (48,000) and community and social services (63,000).
According to the data, youth aged 15-24 years and 25-34 years “continue to have the highest unemployment rates at 59.6% and 39.4%, respectively”.
The unemployment rate among black Africans was the highest at 35.8%, compared with the national average of 31.9%. The unemployment rate among coloured people is 22.3%, Indians/Asians 14% and whites 6.7%.
Black African women recorded an unemployment rate of 38% in the fourth quarter, higher than the national average for women at 33.9%. Coloured women accounted for 22.6% of the unemployment rate, Indian/Asian women 17.6% and white women 7.9%.
‘Badly needed jobs’
Cosatu spokesperson Zanele Sabela said the labour federation welcomed the “slight drop in unemployment with the most recent quarter producing an additional 130,000 badly needed jobs and overall unemployment falling by 0.3%, taking the total number of workers to 17.1-million for the first time”.
“We are concerned by the loss of 11,000 agricultural jobs and fear the possible imposition of steep tariff duties on SA exports to the US may threaten further job losses in this key economic sector,” Sabela said.
“While we appreciate every single new job, we cannot celebrate a tremendously high unemployment rate of 41.6% and youth unemployment of 70%. These are our single greatest challenges and a ticking time bomb that threatens the very fabric of society.”
Sabela said more should be done to capacitate the state for it to provide the public and municipal services the economy depends on. More needs to be done to inject stimulus by accelerating the infrastructure rollout as well as tapping into more financial support for small, medium and macro enterprises. Public employment programmes also had to be ramped up to provide a pathway to employment for the 12-million unemployed.
Michael Bagraim, a labour analyst and DA spokesperson on employment & labour, said the latest data “underscores the urgency of accelerating economic reforms to drive job creation in SA. While this slight improvement is encouraging, the structural challenges in our economy persist, requiring bold action.”
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s budget speech on Wednesday “is a decisive opportunity to implement bold reforms that will position our country for sustained economic growth”, he added.
North West University Business School economics professor Raymond Parsons said: “Though the overall unemployment level in SA at 31.9% remains unacceptably high, the slightly better news … is encouraging and it may confirm that a turning point has nonetheless now been reached in unemployment figures.
“The latest improved jobs data may be starting to reflect the incipient economic recovery in SA, which though slow and uneven, will gradually begin to reduce unemployment as the business cycle improves.
“Nevertheless, the number of discouraged work seekers is still too high. SA needs to maximise the number of jobs created at any given growth rate. A big dent in unemployment will only come from much higher rates of GDP growth coupled with accelerated economic reforms. Achieving the 3% GDP growth target now set by the GNU in its latest Medium Term Development Plan is therefore paramount in the period ahead.”
Update: February 18 2025
This article contains comment from Cosatu and other officials.
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