South Africa’s official unemployment rate increased from 32.9% in the first quarter of the year to 33.5% in the second quarter, marking the highest rate since 2022. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had anticipated a drop below 32%.
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According to Statistics SA, approximately 8.4 million people are now unemployed, up from 5.2 million a decade ago. Over 76% of these individuals have been jobless for more than a year, compared to under 66% in 2024.
Statistics SA also reported that 3.6 million (35.2%) of the 10.3 million young people aged 15 to 24 are neither employed, nor in education or training.
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The expanded unemployment rate, which includes discouraged work-seekers who have stopped looking for jobs, rose to 42.6% in the second quarter of 2024.
Among the provinces, North West had the highest expanded unemployment rate at 54.2%, followed by the Eastern Cape at 49.7%. Limpopo showed the largest gap between expanded and official unemployment rates, at 15.7 percentage points.
While employment in trade and agriculture decreased, there were gains in manufacturing and the informal sector. The formal sector now represents nearly 69% of total employment.
Unemployment among university graduates fell by 2.1 percentage points to 9.7% in the second quarter, a decrease from a decade ago (11.8%). In contrast, the jobless rates for those with matric and less than matric are 35.8% and 39.3%, respectively.
The unemployment rate for black Africans remains the highest at 37.6%, surpassing the national average and other population groups.
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