{"id":838665,"date":"2025-09-30T12:02:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T10:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=838665"},"modified":"2025-09-30T12:02:41","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T10:02:41","slug":"south-africa-bleeds-230000-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/838665\/south-africa-bleeds-230000-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa bleeds 230,000 jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Formal employment in South Africa dropped by 229,000 jobs year on year in the second quarter of 2025, shedding 80,000 jobs from the first quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest data from Stats SA’s Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) shows that formal employment in the country is under severe strain, particularly in the community services sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total employment decreased by 80,000 or 0.8% quarter-on-quarter, from 10,589,000 in March 2025 to 10,509,000 in June 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was largely due to a decrease in the following industries: community services (-53,000), trade (-10,000), manufacturing (-9,000), construction (-7,000), transport (-2,000) and business services (-2,000). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there was an increase in mining (+2,000) and electricity (+1,000). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total employment decreased by 229,000 or 2.1% year-on-year between June 2024 and June 2025, down from 10,738,000 last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year job losses were mostly recorded in community services (-225,000), followed by manufacturing (-18,000), mining (-6,000), transport (-3,000) and trade (-1,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Job gains year-on-year were recorded in electricity (+1,000) and business services (+23,000), with a flat result for construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The QES is an employer survey that tracks the number of formal jobs in the country, excluding agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing and private households. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This differs from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), which is a broader household survey that captures various employment types, including informal and domestic work, and unpaid family workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The QES gauges the health of South Africa’s formal business environment, while the QLFS focuses on the labour side, and is used to determine the official unemployment rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, the QLFS for the second quarter of the year also recorded a 140,000 more workers becoming unemployed in the quarter<\/strong><\/a>, with the official unemployment rate ticking up to 33.2%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both data sets point to a deepening jobs crisis in the country, with the QES in particular pointing to a worring trend, marking the third consecutive quarter of declining numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prospects for the remaining quarters of the year are also dim, with South African businesses facing increasing risks due to internal and external pressures on the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Average salaries <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While thousands of jobs were lost over the quarter, those who remained employed and on payrolls would have seen higher earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TheQES overs eight key industries or sectors in South Africa, which is split further into 20 sub-categories, mainly made up of various manufacturing sectors, as well as a split between government and non-government community and social services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average monthly earnings paid to employees increased by 3.4% from R28,322 in February 2025 to R29,290 in May 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year average monthly earnings paid to employees increased by 6.5% between May 2024 and May 2025, Stats SA noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gross earnings increased by R2.2 billion or 0.2% from R984.7 billion in March 2025 to R986.8 billion in June 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was largely due to an increases in community services, trade, construction, transport, mining, electricity and manufacturing\u2014despite the jobs shed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there was a decrease in earnings the business services industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basic salary\/wages increased by 2.5% over the quarter, while bonuses decreased by 25.4%. This reflects the expected change in seasonal bonus pay. Overtime, however, also declined by 1.0% over the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year, basic earnings paid increase by 3.6%, in line with inflation, while bonuses paid increased by 5.1% versus the same time last year. Overtime paid decreased by 4.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Formal employment in South Africa dropped by 229,000 jobs year-on-year in the second quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":834743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[22112,1809],"class_list":["post-838665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-qes","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838665","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838671,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838665\/revisions\/838671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}