{"id":865026,"date":"2026-06-30T13:32:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T11:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=865026"},"modified":"2026-06-30T13:33:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T11:33:00","slug":"south-africa-bleeds-121000-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/865026\/south-africa-bleeds-121000-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa bleeds 121,000 jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa has lost 121,000 jobs over the past 12 months, with the latest Quarterly Employment Survey from Stats SA painting a bleak picture for workers and consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stats SA, total employment decreased by 121,000 or 1.1% year-on-year between March 2025 and March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employment decreased by 80,000 or 0.8% quarter-on-quarter, from 10,548,000 in December
2025 to 10,468,000 in March 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to decreases in community services (-53,000 or -1.9%), trade (-40,000 or -1.7%), transport (-3,000 or -0.6%), and electricity (-1,000 or -1.5%). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, increases were reported in manufacturing (7,000 or 0.6%), business services (7,000 or 0.3%), mining (2,000 or 0.4%), and construction (1,000 or 0.2%).

Full-time employment decreased by 24,000 or 0.3% quarter-on-quarter, from 9,433,000 in December
2025 to 9,409,000 in March 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full-time employment decreased by 48,000 or 0.5% year-on-year between March 2025 and March
2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part-time employment decreased by 56,000 or 5.0% quarter-on-quarter, from 1,115,000 in December 2025 to 1,059,000 in March 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part-time employment decreased by 73,000 or 6.4% year-on-year between March 2025 and March 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The QES data follows a dismal Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) in May 2026, which revealed that the country’s unemployment rate had spiked to 32.7% in the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That survey showed that 301,000 people lost their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The QES and QLFS differ in that the QES is an enterprise-based survey that draws data from private, non-agricultural businesses (eg, factories, offices, stores).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the name implies, the QLFS is a worker survey that samples the wider labour force and reflects job numbers in the economy as a whole, including agriculture and the informal sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Elna Moolman, Standard Bank Group Head of South Africa Macroeconomic Research, said that the loss of jobs in the private sector, in particular, paints a “reasonably bleak picture” for South African consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because the losses were felt in wholesale and hotels and accommodation, where consumer pressure is most evident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In the first quarter of this year, the credit bureau data that we track shows an increase in financial pressure on consumers,” Moolman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was specifically a broad-based rise in non-performing loans and the proportion of consumers with overdue debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In the second quarter, we saw a significant spike in the cost of living, and the SARB increased rates by a quarter of a percentage point. We expect consumers to remain under pressure for the rest of this year,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

South Africa has lost 121,000 jobs over the past 12 months, with the latest Quarterly Employment Survey from Stats SA painting a bleak picture for workers and consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":796661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[21349,22112,1809],"class_list":["post-865026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-job-losses","tag-qes","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865026","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=865026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":865030,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865026\/revisions\/865030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}