A quarter-million jobs, one budget line: Why inflation-linked beer excise makes economic sense

Discover how a quarter-million South Africans, from farmers to craft brewers, rely on the beer industry and why aligning beer excise with inflation is vital for their livelihoods. Somewhere between a barley field in the Free State and a cold draught served at a tavern in Tembisa, a quarter of a million South Africans earn their living. They are farmers and maltsters, factory workers and truck drivers, packaging engineers and small business owners, waiters and craft brewers.

They work across one of the most geographically dispersed and employment-intensive value chains in the country’s manufacturing economy — and every one of their livelihoods is connected, directly or indirectly, to a single line in the National Budget: the annual adjustment to beer excise duty. That connection is what makes the 2026 excise decision so consequential.Beer’s economic contributionextends well beyond the breweries themselves. Independent assessments have estimated that the value chain supports upward of 250,000 jobs when direct, indirect, and induced effects are counted, generating fiscal contributions across excise, VAT, corporate income tax, and personal income tax at every node.

These are not abstract multiplier estimates. They are visible in the workers hired when barley is planted, in the aluminium and glass plants that run production lines for cans and bottles, in the logistics firms that move product to market, and in the township tavern owners and craft taproom entrepreneurs who represent the final link between producer and consumer.