Unemployment jumps in South Africa

South Africa’s official unemployment rate has increased to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2025, jumping a full percentage point from the last quarter.

This exceeded economists’ expectations, who anticpated a smaller climb of just 0.2 percentage points.

The first quarter of the year historically shows a drop-off in employment as businesses shed the seasonal hires of the festive season and thousands of fresh matriculants and graduates enter the job market.

At 32.9%, the unemployment rate is at the exact same level as it was in Q1 2024.

According to the results of Stats SA’s Quarterly Labor Force Survey (QLFS), the first quarter of the year saw a drop of 291,000 employed people to 16.8 million from 17.1 million in Q4 2024.

Meanwhile there was an increase of 237,000 in the number of unemployed persons to 8.2 million, it said.

This resulted in a decrease of 54,000 (down by 0.2%) in the labour force during the same period.

Discouraged work-seekers increased by 7,000 (up by 0.2%), and the number of persons who were not economically active for reasons other than discouragement increased by 177,000 (up by 1.4%.

This led to an increase of 184,000 in the number of the not economically active population, to 16.7 million.

The above changes in employment and unemployment resulted in the official unemployment rate increasing by 1.0 percentage point from 31.9% in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2025.

The expanded unemployment rate in the first quarter of 2025 increased by 1.2 percentage points to 43.1% when compared with the fourth quarter of 2024, which was 41.9%.

Stats SA noted that the largest industry increases in employment were recorded in Transport (67,000) Finance (60,000) and Utilities (35,000).

Decreases in employment were recorded in Trade (194,000), Construction (119,000), Private households (68,000), Community and Social services (45,000), and Mining (35,000).

The results also indicate that increases in employment were observed in Western Cape (49,000), Gauteng (9,000) and Free State (4,000).

Decreases were observed in KwaZulu-Natal (104,000), Eastern Cape (83,000), North West (57,000), Limpopo (55,000), Mpumalanga (43,000) and Northern Cape (12,000).

Youth unemployment remains a huge issue in the country, with those aged 15–34 years being exceptionally vulnerable in the labour market.

The results for the first quarter of 2025 show that the total number of unemployed youth increased by
151,000 to 4.8 million, while employed youth recorded a decrease of 153,000 to 5.7 million.

As a result, the youth unemployment rate increased from 44.6% in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 46.1% in the first quarter of 2025.