Here’s what time South Africans leave for work in the morning

 ·12 Mar 2022

Statistics South Africa has published its National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) for each of the nine provinces, detailing what time South African workers leave for work.

The data shows that nationally, more than a quarter of workers leave before 06h00, with a similar number of people leaving for work between 07h00 and 08h00.

Understandably, those workers who live further from city centres geographically typically leave the earliest.


Gauteng

More than a quarter (27.5%) of workers in the province left for work before 06h00, followed by 25.2% who left between 07h00 to 07h59 and 18.9% left their place of residence between 06h00 and 06h29.

All the municipalities followed the same trend, except for Sedibeng where a high percentage (30.1%) of workers left for work between 07h00 to 07h59, followed by 23.9% who left before 06h00 and those who left between 06h00 to 06h29 (22.3%).

Geographically, workers in rural areas were most likely to leave for work before 06h00 (31.5%) compared to urban workers at (27.5%). Workers in urban areas are more likely to leave for work between 07h00 to 07h59 (25.2%) than rural workers at (23.5%).


Western Cape 

More than a third (34.9%) of Western Cape workers left their homes for work between 07h00 and 07h59 in the morning.

Central Karoo and Overberg recorded the highest percentages of workers leaving their homes/residential places between 07h00 and 07h59 in the morning (both at 47.8%) followed by Cape Winelands at 42.6%.

Approximately one in five workers (19.2%) left for work between 06h00 and 06h29 in the morning. West Coast (21.6%) and City of Cape Town (20.8%) recorded the highest proportion of workers leaving for work between 06h00 and 06h29 in the morning.

Overberg recorded the lowest proportion of workers leaving before 06h00, with only 7.1%.

Almost four in 10 workers who reside in rural areas leave home for work between 06h30 and 06h59 in the morning, contrary to the majority of workers in urban areas who leave home for work between 07h00 and 07h59 in the morning.

About 10% of workers living in urban areas leave after 08h00, while rural areas had only had 2.2% of workers who leave after 08h00.


KZN 

More than a quarter (26.5%) of workers left for work between 07h00 and 07h59. This was followed by 25.2% of workers who left their place of residence before 6:00 in the morning.

Only 11.4% of workers left at 08h00 or later in the morning. uThukela (35.8%) and uMzinyathi (35.5%) had the highest proportion of workers who left home between 07h00 and 07h59 for their place of work.

Workers in King Cetshwayo (34.7%) and Amajuba (28.3%) were more likely to leave before 06h00 in the morning.

The municipalities where significant percentages of workers left home at 08h00 or later were eThekwini (17.2%) and Zululand (11.7%).

The highest percentage of workers in urban areas (30.8%) left their place of residence between 07h00 and 07h59 to work. However, rural workers (32.2%) tended to travel before 06h00 in the morning.


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