For the third quarter in a row, the Western Cape has streaked ahead of national employment statistics. Amid good news about a generally recovering labour market, the Western Cape once again made the biggest gains.

In the latest Quarterly Labour Survey (Q3) from Statistics South Africa, almost 400,000 South Africans secured new employment, bringing the total number of employed persons to 16.7 million. During the same period (July to September), the number of unemployed people decreased by 72,000 to reach 7.8 million. This brings the yearly figure for total employment increases up to 979,000 persons (6.2%).

In the Western Cape, employment is up by 22,000 jobs (0.8% quarter-on-quarter) and up by 305,000 jobs (12.6% year-on-year). The official unemployment rate in the Western Cape is 20.2% in Q3 of 2023, which is 11.7% lower than South Africa's official unemployment rate (31.9%) in the same quarter.

The expanded unemployment rate in the Western Cape is 25.6%, which is 15.6% lower than South Africa's expanded unemployment rate (41.2%) in the same quarter, while Cape Town added 205,000 new jobs over the last year, more than all other metros combined. Cape Town's unemployment rate fell by 3.8% year-on-year and remains the lowest of all eight metros based on the expanded unemployment definition.

Employment losses were recorded only in the Free State (a decrease of 3,000).

Over the past year, the largest increases in employment were recorded in Western Cape (305,000), KwaZulu-Natal (255,000), Limpopo (202,000), Eastern Cape (99,000), and Gauteng (96,000). Free State experienced losses in employment with a decrease of 70,000 during the same period.

DA representatives for the Western Cape celebrated these figures while noting that the unemployment rate is still dangerously high, and should be taken seriously, even if it may be lower than in the rest of the country.

Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis:

“Cape Town’s economy is showing resilience, with employment levels above pre-Covid levels for three consecutive quarters […] Cape Town is increasingly at the heart of national economic growth, with the latest census showing our city will soon overtake Johannesburg as South Africa’s most populous city,”