The high youth unemployment figures for January clearly show how bad unemployment in South Africa is, with 61% of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 and 39.9% of people between the ages of 25 and 34 years unemployed.
Economic research group, Oxford Economics Africa, says South Africa’s unemployment rate is decreasing at a sluggish pace, while the weakened economic growth outlook bodes ill for future employment growth and the high youth unemployment rate highlights the unemployment crisis. According to Statistics SA’s Q4 2022 Quarterly Labour Force Survey , the number of unemployed people stood at roughly 7.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, a slight increase from the third quarter. The number of employed individuals increased by 1.1% compared to the third quarter, thanks to an uptick in formal sector employment.
The number of unemployed people increased by 28 000 compared to the previous quarter to roughly 7.8 million and the working-age population increased by 141 000 , while the total number employed people increased by 169 000 to reach 15.9 million.