{"id":846144,"date":"2025-12-11T12:13:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T10:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=846144"},"modified":"2025-12-11T12:14:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T10:14:03","slug":"this-is-the-average-salary-in-south-africa-at-the-end-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/846144\/this-is-the-average-salary-in-south-africa-at-the-end-of-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"This is the average salary in South Africa at the end of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stats SA has published the latest Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) for the third quarter of 2025, showing that the average salary in the country has hit a record high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average salary paid to formal, non-agricultural workers in South Africa grew 0.3% quarter-on-quarter and 4.3% year-on-year to R29,490.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increase in earnings was driven by key industries, with the manufacturing industry experiencing the fastest growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was followed by the transport, construction and business services sectors. Trade, community services and electricity earnings declined in the quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a year-on-year basis, the community services industry reported the largest annual increase at 6.1%, while the business services industry had the lowest growth at 2.1%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conversely, the mining industry declined year-on-year by 0.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, the community services industry includes the government and public service sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gross earnings paid to employees increased by R10.7 billion or 1,1% from R990 billion in June 2025 to just over R1 trillion in September 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to increases in the business services, community services, mining, manufacturing, electricity and construction. Transport and trade reported a decrease in gross earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year gross earnings increased by R31.2 billion or 3,2% between September 2024 and September 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basic salary\/wages paid to employees increased by R7.8 billion or 0.9% from R903.4 billion in June 2025 to R911.2 billion in September 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonuses paid to employees increased by R6.2 billion or 10.9% from R56.7 billion in June 2025 to R62.9 billion in September 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overtime paid to employees decreased by R3.3 billion or 11.1% from R29.9 billion in June 2025 to R26.6 billion in September 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the quarter-on-quarter growth in earnings over the period was relatively flat, the year on year growth at 4.3% is markedly higher than inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a strong positive for salary earners in South Africa, marking real growth in earnings against the low inflation environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation is expected to average 3.5% in 2025, tracking much lower in the latter half of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Trouble for jons<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The QES marked an increase in employment over the quarter, but still recorded a drop in employment year-on-year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total employment increased by 29,000 or 0.3% quarter-on-quarter, from 10.52 million in June 2025 to
10.55 million in September 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to increases in the community services (39,000 or 1.4%), trade (6,000 or 0.3%), and mining (5,000 or 1.1%) sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The electricity and transport sectors remained unchanged. However, there were decreases reported by the business services (-12,000 or -0.5%), manufacturing (-5,000 or -0.4%), and construction (-4,000 or
-0.7%) sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year, however, the picture was not as bright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total employment decreased by 79,000 or -0.7% year-on-year between September 2024 and September 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full-time employment decreased by 0.2% quarter-on-quarter, and by 0.8% year-on-year. Part-time employment increased by 4.6% quarter-on-quarter, but decreased 0.6% year-on-year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data stands in contrast to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), which recorded an increase of 248,000 in the number of employed persons to 17.1 million in Q3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This saw the unemployment rate reduce from 33.2% in Q2 to 31.9% in Q3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The QES is an employer survey and tracks the number of jobs in the formal, non-agricultural sector. The QLFS is a labour survey and covers the entire South African workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest QLFS also included a host of definition changes to better capture the differences between the \u201cNot Economically Active\u201d population, and those \u201cOutside the Labour Force\u201d and the \u201cPotential labour force\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the changes impact the numbers shifting around the different categories, they don’t necessarily impact the key differences between employed and unemployed, only the expanded definitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the QLFS data indicates a positive turn in the overall workforce, while the QES points to strain in formal, non-agricultural employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Stats SA has published the latest Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) for the third quarter of 2025, showing that the average salary in the country has hit a record high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":702685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[22112,1809],"class_list":["post-846144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-qes","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846144","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=846144"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846156,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846144\/revisions\/846156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}