File photo
South Africa’s unemployment rate retreated to 31.9% in the fourth quarter of 2024 from 32.1% previously, with four of 10 industries surveyed adding jobs.
This marks the second consecutive drop in the jobless rate, and the lowest since the third quarter of 2023.
During the three months under review, the number of employed people increased by 132,000 to 17.1 million, while that of those without jobs decreased by 20,000 to eight million, Statistics South Africa data showed on Tuesday. The number of people who entered the work force in the fourth quarter edged up 0.3% to 130,000.
Employment increased in four of the 10 industries surveyed from the third quarter to the fourth, including finance, which added 232 000 jobs, followed by manufacturing (41,000), private households (18,000) and transport (17,000).
Jobs were lost in community and social services (63,000), trade (48,000) and construction (22,000).
About 10.3 million young people aged 15 to 24 years were not in employment, education or training during the final quarter of 2024, an increase of 0.5% from the same period in 2023, Stats SA said.
During his 2025 State of the Nation address earlier this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government remained committed to creating jobs, with a special focus on youth employment programmes.
He said the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme, which helps young people to secure jobs, had created almost 2.2 million work and livelihood opportunities “through innovative models that provide high-quality work to participants”.
Ramaphosa said there was potential in the digital sector and business process outsources for youth employment.
But, to create more investment, growth and jobs, the president acknowledged that South Africa’s economy — which contracted by 0.3% in the third quarter of 2024, according to the latest available data — needed to expand by above 3% annually.
Although unemployment eased during the fourth quarter, a “sustained, substantial lift in confidence and growth is required to reduce unemployment meaningfully”, Investec economist Lara Hodes said.