{"id":872130,"date":"2026-09-21T12:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=872130"},"modified":"2026-09-21T12:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T10:24:14","slug":"south-africas-richest-city-is-falling-behind-its-biggest-rivals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/872130\/south-africas-richest-city-is-falling-behind-its-biggest-rivals\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s richest city is falling behind its biggest rivals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Despite its strong overall contributions to South Africa’s economy, Johannesburg’s unemployment rate is significantly higher than that of other African economic hubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second quarter of 2026, Johannesburg recorded an unemployment rate of 35.9%, higher than the national average of 33.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In comparison, Egypt’s unemployment rate is currently 5.8%, and Morocco’s urban unemployment rate stands at 11.9%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigeria has the lowest unemployment rate among the analysed countries, with the rate dropping sharply after a revision of its calculation methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While these countries do not provide specific unemployment rates for individual cities, the economic contributions of cities such as Cairo, Lagos, and Casablanca can be compared with those of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johannesburg contributes roughly 16% to South Africa’s GDP, which was approximately $427 billion at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lagos, Nigeria’s largest metropolitan area, accounts for approximately 30% of the country’s GDP, which was $290 billion that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cities such as Casablanca and Cairo contribute larger shares to their countries’ economies, with Cairo accounting for 42% of Egypt’s GDP and Casablanca accounting for 32% of Morocco’s GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this may seem to be a poor reflection on Johannesburg, South Africa’s GDP is the largest in Africa, making the city’s total output larger by comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s GDP in 2025 was $427 billion, with Johannesburg the area with the largest contribution to this total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In comparison, Cape Town is South Africa’s second-largest economic contributor, accounting for roughly 10% of the country’s GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johannesburg also has a smaller population than other major African cities, such as Lagos, with an estimated 14.9 million residents, and Cairo, with 9.8 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city has an official population of roughly 4.8 million, according to 2022 national census data, but this number has likely increased in the last four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data on major economic hubs in South Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
City<\/strong><\/td>Country<\/strong><\/td>Share of the country\u2019s GDP<\/strong><\/td>Population<\/strong><\/td>Unemployment rate<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Johannesburg<\/strong><\/td>South Africa<\/td>16%<\/td>4.8 million<\/td>35.9%<\/td><\/tr>
Cape Town<\/strong><\/td>South Africa<\/td>10%<\/td>4.8 million<\/td>21.9%<\/td><\/tr>
Cairo<\/strong><\/td>Egypt<\/td>42%<\/td>9.8 million<\/td>5.8%<\/td><\/tr>
Casablanca<\/strong><\/td>Morocco<\/td>32%<\/td>3.2 million<\/td>11.9%<\/td><\/tr>
Lagos<\/strong><\/td>Nigeria<\/td>30%<\/td>14.9 million<\/td>4.3%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>
Cairo and Lagos track their countries’ national unemployment rates, while Casablanca uses Morocco’s urban unemployment rate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Johannesburg’s struggles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Johannesburg has faced increasing challenges in service delivery, with frequent water and power outages alongside issues such as poor refuse removal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city has also struggled with significant debts to service providers, such as Eskom and Rand Water, for bulk service purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city recently settled its debt with Eskom, paying the energy supplier R5.25 billion in overdue payments for bulk electricity purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unemployment in the city has also been a major challenge, with the unemployment rate being above 30% since 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city has followed a similar pattern to South Africa’s unemployment, with the rate consistently high in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the city’s challenges, Johannesburg continues to be the driving force behind South Africa’s economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Households in the metro earn an average salary that is 57% higher than South Africa’s average and 9% higher than Gauteng’s average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city is also home to some of the country’s largest businesses, with many located in Sandton’s “richest square mile in Africa.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city’s high concentration of wealthy businesses is a major factor in its overall economic contribution to the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The metro is also home to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), with many of the companies listed on the exchange being based in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

African cities such as Lagos, Cairo, and Casablanca also contain a high number of businesses, and are each home to their countries’ stock exchanges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While all cities are major economic contributors to their respective countries, Johannesburg has a far higher unemployment rate than any other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johannesburg is an economic powerhouse in South Africa, but its unemployment rate is far higher than that of rival African cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":840830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2101981023076556914","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2211962539624145","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18124156576884458","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26295,10289,1996,26296,853],"class_list":["post-872130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-cairo","tag-casablanca","tag-johannesburg","tag-lagos","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872130","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872130"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872671,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872130\/revisions\/872671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}