Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian

Quarterly Labour Force Survey

latest news & developments
Youth unemployment rose to 43.8% among 15-to-34-year-olds in Q4 2025, even as the headline rate fell. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
BUSINESS

Unemployment rate eases but structural crisis deepens

The decline brings the official rate to its lowest level since the Covid-19 shock pushed unemployment above 30%

  • Hasina Kathrada
4 min read
Bias for academic qualifications over vocational training has led to an undersupply of skills in crucial areas such as equipping people to become artisans and entrepreneurs.
EDUCATION

Skills gap devours young people’s dreams

Youth unemployment is a crisis but educational reforms have the potential to turn the rising tide

  • Mankodi Moitse
5 min read
The market requires entrepreneurialism, innovation, critical thinking, decisiveness and problem-solving abilities, but most schools and tertiary institutions don’t support this. Photo: AFP
ACTIVITY BASED LEARNING

New world of work requires new minds

Activity-based and experiential learning should be encouraged at school and tertiary institutions so that the academic curricula must align with new realities.

  • Riedwaan Kimmie
6 min read
Employers and domestic workers can contribute a national domestic workers’ pension fund operated through mobile-based platforms for easy registration and tracking contributions. (File photo)
COST OF LIVING

Union demands pension fund for domestic workers

About 850 000 people are employed as domestic workers in South Africa, contributing to 5.2% of the country’s total employment

  • Umamah Bakharia
4 min read
Unemployed men inJohannesburg wait on a street corner for work for part-time work. Photo: Naashon Zalk/Bloomberg/Getty Images
BUSINESS

Unemployment in South Africa is a national crisis, say analysts

With joblessness at a two-year high of 33.5%, more effort is needed to restructure the jobs market

  • Aarti Bhana
7 min read
On the up: Unemployment increased to 33.5% in the last quarter. ​​​​(Dino Lloyd/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
ARTICLE

Unemployment rises to 33.5% in the second quarter

Joblessness increased for the third consecutive quarter, reaching its highest level in two years

  • Aarti Bhana
2 min read
The rise in people employed in the sector is driven by increased production in field crops, forestry and aquaculture. (Photo by MUJAHID SAFODIEN / AFP)
AGRICULTURE

Agriculture increases jobs by 10%, 2023 Quarterly Labour Force Survey shows

The rise in people employed in the sector is driven by increased production in field crops, forestry and aquaculture

  • Wandile Sihlobo
2 min read
In a five-year review of take-home pay, BankservAfrica found that the average salary has not kept pace with inflation. (Illustration: Getty Images)
BANKSERVAFRICA

SA salaries stagnate amid chronic economic underperformance

In a five-year review of take-home pay, BankservAfrica found that the average salary has not kept pace with inflation

  • Sarah Smit
3 min read
Yola Minnaar spends most hours of her day thinking about whether people in her neighbourhood have had something to eat. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
AGRICULTURAL BUSINESS CHAMBER OF SOUTH AFRICA

Rising food prices in South Africa: A struggle for daily survival

The shelves in grocery stores have become more forbidding since the pandemic, but economists believe that there is some hope on the horizon

  • Sarah Smit
7 min read
(Photo by Gallo Images/Darren Stewart)
COVID 19

South Africa’s unemployment rate retreats again

The country has struggled to recover jobs after Covid-19’s economic onslaught

  • Sarah Smit
1 min read
A foreign migrant sits on his bed inside a boarded up room occupied by two people on the upstairs floor in a building in the Kwa Mai Mai area in Johannesburg, on May 14, 2020. – Over 50 people, residents of the same building and mostly foreign nationals are currently unemployed because of the lockdown imposed by the South African authorities to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Dozens of them are unable to feed themselves, as the only charity providing them with food has not brought any in several days. (Photo by MARCO LONGARI / AFP)
16 JUNE

African youth: Empowering the continent’s greatest asset

Education is the best way to turn young people’s potential into realised achievements

  • Christine Dube
5 min read
Ravi Naidoo is chief executive of the Youth Employment Service
APARTHEID EDUCATION

Time to turn SA’s unemployment nightmare into a bold dream

The Youth Employment Service is helping thousands of our youths to land that vital first job

  • Ravi Naidoo
5 min read
Unemployment epidemic: These men, gathered together to wait for the possibility of a piece job, are some of the 34.9% of South Africans who are without work, the highest figure among 82 countries monitored by business news agency Bloomberg. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
ECONOMICS

Another record high as 7.9-million people remain jobless in South Africa

Record new high for unemployment in South Africa, as Stats SA releases jobs data for the fourth quarter of 2021

  • Anathi Madubela
2 min read
Unemployment epidemic: These men, gathered together to wait for the possibility of a piece job, are some of the 34.9% of South Africans who are without work, the highest figure among 82 countries monitored by business news agency Bloomberg. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
COVID 19

Unemployment hits another record high as unrest takes its toll

The official unemployment rate rose to 34.9% in the third quarter of 2021 — the highest since 2008

  • Sarah Smit
2 min read
UIF queues: Experts say if joblessness continues to climb past 34.4% of the work force, the economy risks becoming unviable. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
ANDREW KERR

‘Explosive’ jobs crisis imperils South Africa

Experts’ strategies for fixing the unemployment crisis range from devaluing the rand to a universal income grant or accepting debt from loans

  • Sarah Smit
7 min read