The shrinking labour market is impacting public and private employers alike, with SOEs going through massive retrenchments, Eskom and he Post Office leading.
According to Statistics South Africa’s (Stats SA) latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, the country shed 92,000 jobs in the second quarter of 2024, a sobering reminder of South Africa's frail labour market. Employment fell in key sectors, escalating an already high unemployment rate, which has risen steeply through 2024. The jobless rate climbed from 32.1% at the close of 2023 to 33.5% in the second quarter, reflecting the ongoing difficulty in creating lasting employment gains.
Despite a modest increase of 22,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2024, recent losses have effectively erased these gains. Trade and agriculture, two sectors already vulnerable, saw particularly steep declines, losing 111,000 and 45,000 positions, respectively. Though manufacturing, community, and social services posted some job growth, these improvements were unable to counterbalance broader losses. The number of unemployed people surged by 158,000 to 8.4 million in the second quarter, while discouraged job seekers—those who have stopped looking for work—increased by 147,000, a 4.8% rise.
South Africa’s employment struggles reflect a wider economic stagnation. Chronic issues like slow growth, persistent energy shortages, and entrenched structural inefficiencies continue to stall the post-pandemic recovery. Sectors such as agriculture, private services, and logistics—together accounting for around 40% of GDP—show resilience, but these gains are overshadowed by declines in manufacturing and mining. Since 2019, manufacturing output has fallen by 5%, driving long-term job losses; between April 2023 and March 2024 alone, the sector shed 50,000 jobs. Specific areas, like transport equipment manufacturing, have been particularly affected, losing over 20,000 positions.
State-owned enterprises (SOEs), once large employers, are also downsizing. Telkom, the telecommunications giant, has seen a drastic workforce reduction, falling from 61,237 employees in 1999 to just 9,877 today, a 15% decrease from the previous year as part of ongoing restructuring. The South African Post Office, now mired in a decade of losses exceeding R19 billion, has cut almost half of its workforce in recent years, with nearly 5,000 positions lost amid its business rescue efforts.
Addressing South Africa’s entrenched unemployment crisis will require sustained reforms and robust job creation strategies across the economy, rather than piecemeal interventions. The country’s path to meaningful employment recovery remains beset by structural challenges that, if left unchecked, threaten to entrench economic malaise.
