{"id":851236,"date":"2026-02-18T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=851236"},"modified":"2026-02-17T16:16:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T14:16:32","slug":"two-provinces-in-south-africa-where-more-people-are-unemployed-than-working","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/851236\/two-provinces-in-south-africa-where-more-people-are-unemployed-than-working\/","title":{"rendered":"Two provinces in South Africa where more people are unemployed than working"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa\u2019s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) shows that the Eastern Cape and North West are the only two provinces where more people are unemployed than working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), the country\u2019s official unemployment rate dropped to 31.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025, down from 31.9% in the previous quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This marks a 0.5 percentage point improvement and means about 44,000 more people found jobs, bringing the total number of employed South Africans to 17.1 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the number of unemployed people fell by 172,000 to 7.8 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, despite this improvement, the total labour force\u2014those who are either working or actively looking for work\u2014actually decreased by 128,000 people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, the combined rate\u2014now serving as the new proxy for the previous “expanded unemployment rate”\u2014remains at 42.1%, down from 42.4% previously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The combined rate accounts for unemployed individuals and those who are available to work but are discouraged or not actively seeking employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA clarified that this metric differs from the previous expanded unemployment rate but closely tracks it, and that it will be used going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fourth quarter, the number of discouraged job-seekers increased by 233,000, reaching a total of 3.7 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other available job-seekers decreased by 110,000 to 855,000, while unavailable job-seekers dropped by 41,000 to 42,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This resulted in a net increase of 82,000, bringing the total potential labour force population to 4.6 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, the number of individuals outside the labour force increased by 165,000, reaching 12.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When combining the potential labour force with those outside the labour force, the total rose by 248,000 to 17.1 million in Q4 of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, South Africa\u2019s labour market shows improvements across multiple measures. However, the rates remain extremely high, which indicates a persistent jobs crisis in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Q4 2015 to Q4 2025, the number of unemployed individuals in South Africa rose from 5.2 million to 7.8 million, while the proportion experiencing long-term unemployment increased from 66.9% to 79.7% over the same period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youth unemployment also remains notably high, with a rate of 44.3% for individuals aged 25-34.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Two provinces in trouble<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Across the provinces, the differences are striking. The Western Cape continues to have the lowest official unemployment rate in the country at 18.1%, maintaining its decade-long position as the best-performing province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Northern Cape follows at 27.1%, while Limpopo recorded rates of 28.2% and KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga both recorded 32.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the situation looks much worse in the Eastern Cape and North West. The Eastern Cape recorded the largest increase in unemployment, with a 1.3 percentage-point change in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the new expanded definition, its unemployment rate now sits at 51.4%, meaning more than half of its adult population is unemployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means the Eastern Cape has overtaken the North West as having the most people unemployed than working. The North West recorded an expanded unemployment rate of 50.9%.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast, the Western Cape\u2019s expanded unemployment rate is recorded at 23.7%, showing that its economy remains relatively stable and better able to create jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the national picture shows that South Africa\u2019s job market remains deeply uneven. KwaZulu-Natal also faces major challenges, with an expanded unemployment rate of 47.1%, placing it just behind the North West and Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other provinces may have shown slight improvements, but millions of South Africans are still locked out of the job market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

South Africa\u2019s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) shows that there are now two provinces where more people are unemployed than working.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":812429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[20975,22073,17458,24770,3651],"class_list":["post-851236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-north-west","tag-quarterly-labour-force-survey-qlfs","tag-statistics-south-africa-stats-sa","tag-the-eastern-cape","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851236","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=851236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851248,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851236\/revisions\/851248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}