This was revealed in Stats SA\u2019s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of 2025, which showed a concerning jump in the unemployment rate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the survey, South Africa\u2019s official unemployment rate has increased to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2025, rising a whole percentage point from the last quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This exceeded economists\u2019 expectations, who anticipated a smaller climb of just 0.2 percentage points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Historically, the first quarter of the year shows a drop-off in employment as businesses shed their festive season hires. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is compounded by the thousands of fresh matriculants and graduates entering the job market. At 32.9%, the unemployment rate is at the exact same level as in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nationally, the number of employed people in the year’s first quarter dropped by 291,000 to 16.8 million from 17.1 million in Q4 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The number of unemployed persons increased by 237,000 to 8.2 million, leading to a contraction in the labour force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This resulted in a decrease of 54,000 (down by 0.2%) in the labour force during the same period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This led to an increase of 184,000 in the number of the not economically active population, to 16.7 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, there were some gains across sectors. The most significant industry increases in employment were recorded in Transport (67,000), Finance (60,000), and Utilities (35,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the formal sector added 122,000 jobs, the informal sector experienced an even larger increase of 165,000 jobs, driven by industries like community and social services (+194,000), construction (+176,000), and trade (+109,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The data also highlighted stark provincial disparities. Increases in employment were observed in the Western Cape (49,000), Gauteng (9,000) and the Free State (4,000). <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, 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).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to gaining the most jobs, the Western Cape emerged as the province with the lowest official unemployment rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This figure for the province is sitting at 19.6%, maintaining its decade-long trend of outperforming the national average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By contrast, the North West has grappled with consistently high unemployment rates, officially and under the expanded definition, over the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the expanded definition of unemployment, which includes those who have stopped looking for work, the labour market picture becomes bleaker for many regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Western Cape stands out as the only province with an expanded unemployment rate below 25%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the North West\u2019s rate of 56% means more adults are economically inactive than engaged in any form of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The North West has been the only province where over half of the working-age population is either unemployed or has given up looking for work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, due to the rising unemployment rates, other provinces are fast approaching the line and could soon join it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These provinces include Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape. The former recorded an expanded unemployment rate of 49.3%, underscoring widespread challenges across provinces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Eastern Cape is closely followed by an expanded unemployment rate of 49%, while Limpopo is starting to become a concern at 48.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The worsening of employment rates in Mpumalanga is surprising, given the region\u2019s reliance on industries vulnerable to economic shocks such as mining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Eastern Cape has also been met with structural issues in education, infrastructure, and access to opportunities, perpetuating a cycle of stagnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two more South African provinces are on the brink of joining the North West in having more people unemployed than working. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":777470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[853,1809,3651],"class_list":["post-823931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-south-africa","tag-stats-sa","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823931"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823989,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823931\/revisions\/823989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/unemployment-4.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe provinces on the edge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"