The rate of joblessness among South Africans aged between 15 and 24 reached 62.8% in the second quarter of 2026, a percentage-point rise of 1.9 on the quarter and 0.6 on the year.
Nearly two in three young South Africans looking for work cannot find a job. Among 25-to-34 year olds, the rate stands at 41.8%, up 1.2 percentage points on the quarter. A generation is entering adulthood locked out of formal employment.
The Quarter 2: 2026 Quarterly Labour Force Survey from Statistics South Africa confirms the broader economy is shedding jobs faster than it creates them. Between the first and second quarters of this year, employment fell by 16,000, to 16.7 million. Unemployment rose by 345,000, to 8.5 million. The official unemployment rate climbed to 33.6%, up 0.9 of a percentage point on the quarter and 0.4 of a point on the year. The share of working-age people who have jobs dropped to 39.6%.
Three industries carried most of the damage. Community and social services lost 57,000 jobs on the quarter and 101,000 over the year, the largest decline of any sector. This industry covers health, education and government services. The losses point to fiscal constraint at national and municipal level.
Manufacturing shed 100,000 jobs over the year, a 6.0% drop, even though it steadied on the quarter. Electricity, gas and water supply lost 36,000 jobs over the year, a 26.1% fall, the steepest decline of any industry in percentage terms.
Formal jobs fell by 41,000 on the quarter. Informal jobs grew by 34,000. Workers are moving from formal to informal employment rather than gaining new formal positions. This shrinks the tax base and lowers average productivity across the economy.
The Eastern Cape shows the sharpest regional deterioration. Its unemployment rate jumped from 44.6% to 47.5% on the quarter and rose 8.0 percentage points over the year, the largest increase of any province. With local government elections set for 4 November, that scale of economic pain in a single province could carry political weight.
Consumption-linked sectors
The jobs still being created are in trade and construction, sectors tied to household spending rather than fixed investment. The jobs being lost are in government services, manufacturing and utilities, sectors tied to state capacity and industrial competitiveness. An economy adding jobs in consumption-linked sectors, while losing them in production and public-service sectors, is not building the kind of growth that lifts living standards over time.
On the composite measure of labour underutilisation, almost half of South Africa’s working-age population, 46.3%, is unemployed, underemployed or has stopped looking for work. Among youth aged 15 to 24, that composite rate reaches 73.8%.
Rather than something to build, government has treated job creation as a target to announce. Expanded public employment programmes and youth employment initiatives have not moved the underlying numbers. The problem is not a lack of programmes: it is a lack of the conditions that allow and incentivise businesses to hire, such as reliable electricity and water, functioning municipal services, and pro-growth and pro-liberty policy certainty.
Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment compliance costs, the threat of expropriation without compensation, and the National Health Insurance Act all add uncertainty at exactly the moment when businesses need confidence to commit to new hires.
A tax and regulatory environment that rewards formal employment over informal survival would do more for jobs than any new state programme.
Ahead of November, political parties positioning themselves around jobs need to reckon with what the numbers show. The crisis is falling hardest on the young and on provinces where local government has failed to keep basic services running.
No capacity to deliver
Any credible platform must start there, with the mechanics of service delivery and industrial competitiveness, rather than with promises of job numbers the economy has demonstrated it has no capacity to deliver.
The data confirm the Rolling Backward scenario created by the Centre for Risk Analysis (CRA) – included in our latest Strategic Intelligence Briefing – for South Africa’s growth trajectory.
Without reforming policies and legislation that discourage capital formation, investment, and business growth, the labour market will continue drifting in this direction, quarter by quarter.
[Image: By Holly Wasserfall – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55550491]
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