Never in his seven-and-a-half years as statistician-general has Risenga Maluleke seen the number of young people not in employment, education or training reach 3.8-million, he told journalists on Tuesday, as Stats SA released its quarterly labour force survey in Pretoria.
“It has always been about 3.2-million, 3.3-million, and it started reaching 3.5-million. We are now sitting at 3.8-million,” Maluleke said.
SA’s official unemployment rate rose to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2025 from 31.9% in the fourth quarter of 2024. The unemployment figure including those that have given up looking for work has risen to 43.1%.
The economy lost 291,000 jobs, a sharp reversal from the 132,000 jobs gained in the previous quarter. This includes the loss of 119,000 jobs in the construction sector, which carries the highest employment multiplier in the economy — a factor likely to increase pressure on finance minister Enoch Godongwana to deliver on repeated calls to turn SA into a construction site. Godongwana is due to table the revised budget on May 21.
According to the 2024 medium-term budget policy statement, every R1m spent on infrastructure projects increases domestic output by R1.86m and creates three jobs for individuals with a matric qualification.
The total number of employed people is now 16.8-million, while the number of unemployed individuals increased to 8.2-million, from about 8-million previously.
As expected by economists, the first quarter reflected the typical post-holiday decline in employment, compounded by an influx of school leavers entering the job market.
“A combination of structural deficiencies such as a lack of skills, limited access to quality education and training, and inadequate job creation has resulted in a large portion of the population being unable to find gainful employment,” Anchor Capital economist Casey Sprake said.
Maluleke emphasised that youth unemployment remained critically high.
The overall unemployment rate for youth aged 15-24 has risen to 62.4%.
According to the report there were about 10.3-million young people aged 15-24 years, of which 37.1% were not in employment, education or training.
The “not in employment, education or training (NEET)” rate serves as an important additional labour market indicator for young people.
The NEET rate for females was also higher than that of males.
Compared with the first quarter of 2024, the proportion of young people aged 15-34 who were not in employment, education or training rose by 1.3 percentage points — from 43.8% to 45.1%. In both periods, more than four in 10 young South Africans fell into the NEET category.
Yet, it is still better to be educated than not. “Those with matric are sitting at 34.9%. That is higher than the national average,” Maluleke said.
For individuals with less than matric, the unemployment rate stands at 39%.
Maluleke noted that it is no longer enough to say matric will land you a job.
“When we look at graduates, their unemployment rate is the lowest, sitting at 11.7%. It’s not good when people don’t have employment, but yet we can see here that when you have higher levels of education, you are able to get employed.”
The labour force shrank by 54,000 people, or 0.2%, while discouraged work-seekers increased by 7,000 to 3.47-million (up 0.2%). The number of economically inactive individuals rose by 184,000 to 16.7-million, up from 16.5-million in the fourth quarter of 2024. The expanded unemployment rate, which includes those discouraged from seeking work, climbed to 43.1% from 41.9%.
Provincially, the North West recorded the highest expanded unemployment rate at 56%, while the Western Cape reported the lowest at 24.7%. The City of Cape Town, in a statement, boasted it had added 86,000 jobs in one year, reaching a record employment level of 1.827-million people now in jobs.
Employment by sector showed mixed trends. The formal sector, previously accounting for 68.4% of total employment, saw a decline to 11.4-million jobs, while the informal sector rose slightly to 3.35-million. Employment in private households fell to 1.08-million and agriculture edged up to 930,000 jobs.
Job gains were most notable in the transport (67,000), finance (60,000) and utilities (35,000) sectors. Besides construction, significant job losses were recorded in the trade sector (194,000 jobs) and in community and social services (45,000).
“In the domestic economy, material job creation has only occurred when GDP growth approaches 3% per annum,” Sprake noted.
“The economy is simply not growing at an adequate rate to sustainably boost long-term employment prospects.”
Update: May 13 2025
This story was updated to include more information and comment.
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