South Africa’s Unemployment Rate Rises to 33.6% in Second Quarter

Employment trends varied considerably between industries, with Trade recording the strongest increase after adding 70,000 jobs, followed by Construction with 39,000 and Finance with 11,000.

South Africa's labour market came under renewed pressure in the second quarter of 2026 as the official unemployment rate climbed to 33.6%, with another 345,000 people joining the ranks of the unemployed and particularly difficult conditions continuing to affect younger workers.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reported in its latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey that unemployment increased from 32.7% in the first quarter to 33.6% in the second, representing a rise of 0.9 percentage point. The number of unemployed people reached 8.5 million, while employment declined by 16,000 to 16.7 million. South Africa's labour force grew by 329,000 people, or 1.3%, during the quarter.

Trade and Construction Add Jobs

Employment trends varied considerably between industries, with Trade recording the strongest increase after adding 70,000 jobs, followed by Construction with 39,000 and Finance with 11,000. Those gains were offset by losses elsewhere in the economy. Community and social services shed 57,000 jobs, Mining lost 26,000 positions, while Agriculture and Manufacturing each recorded declines of 15,000.

Formal sector employment fell by 41,000 and the household sector lost another 9,000 jobs, while informal employment increased by 34,000 during the quarter, showing that employment growth was concentrated outside some of the country's more established job markets.

Provinces Record Mixed Employment Picture

Mpumalanga recorded the largest provincial employment increase with 41,000 additional jobs, followed by the Eastern Cape with 13,000 and the Free State with 9,000. Employment conditions moved in the opposite direction in several major economic centres, with the Western Cape losing 48,000 jobs, Gauteng recording a decline of 22,000 and North West shedding 15,000.

Stats SA also reported that discouraged job-seekers declined by 227,000 to 3.7 million, while the broader potential labour force decreased by 280,000 to 4.6 million. The total number of people outside the labour force fell by 208,000 to 17.1 million.

Youth Unemployment Climbs to 47.4%

Young South Africans experienced an even sharper deterioration in employment conditions during the quarter, highlighting the scale of the challenge facing people trying to establish themselves in the labour market. The number of unemployed people aged between 15 and 34 increased by 264,000 to five million, while the number of employed youth declined by 40,000 to 5.6 million.

Those changes pushed the youth unemployment rate up by 1.5 percentage points to 47.4% in the second quarter, meaning nearly half of economically active young people covered by the official measure were unemployed. The latest figures underline the continuing difficulty of generating enough jobs to absorb South Africans entering or returning to the labour market, even as industries such as trade and construction recorded employment gains.