Unemployment rate eases to 31.4% in 2025

The unemployment rate decreased by 0.5 of a percentage point from 31.9% in the third quarter of 2025 to 31.4 in the fourth quarter, thanks to the addition of 44,000 jobs during the period under review. The latest data is in line with projections from the Bureau of Market Research (BMR), which showed that while headline unemployment figures may appear broadly stable, the underlying reality remained challenging. Delivering the unemployment data for the last quarter of 2025 at Stats SA’s Isibalo House headquarters in Pretoria on Tuesday, statistician-general Risenga Maluleke said during the last quarter, discouraged job seekers increased by 233,000 to 3.7-million, while other available job seekers decreased by 110,000 to 855,000, and unavailable job seekers decreased by 41,000 to 42,000.

This resulted in a total net increase of 82,000 to 4.6-million in the potential labour force population; that is, persons who were available but not seeking or unavailable but seeking. Those outside the labour force accounted for 17.1-million. The unemployment figures come after mineral and petroleum resources minister and ANC national chair Gwede Mantashe sparked controversy last month, when he suggested that SA’s high unemployment was partly due to young people being too lazy to look for jobs and relying on government handouts.

During the state of the nation address (Sona) in Cape Town last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa said it was a matter of national concern that too many South Africans remained unemployed and too many young people struggled to find their first job. He reiterated that job creation remained a priority for the government, one which the state’s Operation Vulindlela aimed to tackle by removing structural barriers to investment, such as power cuts, data costs and logistics bottlenecks. Structural unemployment continues to plague SA’s economy, with about a third of the country unable to find jobs.

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The official rate was 31.9% in the third quarter — five times higher than the average of South Africa’s G20 peers. On Tuesday, Maluleke said the number of persons employed in the formal sector increased by 320,000 in the last quarter, while the informal sector employment decreased by 293,000 over the same period. The largest increases in industry employment were recorded in community and social services (46,000), construction (35,000), and finance (32,000).

Decreases in employment were recorded in trade (98,000), manufacturing (61,000) and mining (5,000). The DA-run Western Cape accounted for the largest increase in employment at 93,000, followed by Mpumalanga at 37,000, the North West at 36,000 and the Northern Cape at 17,000.

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