South Africa’s official unemployment rate dipped slightly from 32.1% in Q3 2024 to 31.9% in Q4, marking a second consecutive quarterly decline, according to data from Statistics South Africa released on Tuesday.
The drop was largely driven by job growth in the finance sector, which added 230,000 jobs during the period. Other sectors, including manufacturing, private households, and transportation, also saw significant employment gains.
As a result, the total number of employed individuals in the formal sector rose by 90,000. Meanwhile employment gains dropped significantly in the informal sector as only 34,000 jobs were added in Q4, down from 165,000 in Q3.
Overall, “the number of employed persons increased by 132,000 to 17.1 million in Q4 2024, while the number of unemployed persons decreased by 20,000 to 8.0 million compared with Q3 2024, resulting in an increase of 112,000 (up by 0.4%) in the labour force,” the report stated.
Despite the improvement, South Africa’s expanded unemployment rate, which includes those available for work but not actively searching, remained unchanged at 41.9% in Q4. Compared to a year earlier, however, this figure increased by 0.8 percentage points.
Notably, this is the first time South Africa’s official jobless rate has declined in the final quarter of the year since the COVID-19 pandemic. In Q3 2021, the country recorded the world’s highest unemployment rate among 82 nations tracked by Bloomberg.
The continued decline in unemployment offers a potential boost to the government of national unity, formed by the African National Congress. Since losing its outright majority in May elections, the coalition has prioritized economic growth above 3% as a means to reduce joblessness.
The nation’s treasury, which has earmarked 3.4 billion rand for job-creation initiatives in the 2024-25 fiscal year, estimates that 30.6% of the population will receive some form of social grant over the next three years, excluding the stipend for the unemployed introduced during the pandemic.