SA joblessness crisis: Unemployment figures should keep us all awake at night

13 August 2024

8.4 million South Africans are now unemployed, with no income to support their families, and the majority of these people have been without a job for more than a year. 

This is the reality reflected in the latest unemployment figures released today which showed an increase in the official rate from 32.9% in the first quarter of this year to 33.5% in the second quarter. 

Not only is this the highest rate since 2022 and among the highest globally but the figures show that over 76% of people in this group have been unable to find decent work in the past 12 months. 

With South Africa stuck in an economic growth crisis, trapping millions of South Africans in unemployment and unacceptable levels of poverty, more especially young and black South Africans, we simply have no choice but to implement a Basic Income Grant

As we have highlighted before, unless the country can achieve a sustained economic growth rate of 5% to 6% per annum, South Africa will not be able to meaningfully reduce unemployment.

Today’s report by StatsSA cannot emphasize the moral and legal duty of the state to provide basic income support enough. With the economy failing to generate jobs to provide people's basic needs, this becomes the State’s responsibility. 

South Africans deserve the full social security overhaul promised by the leaders they depend on and as envisioned in the National Development Plan. Not annual extensions of R370 to barely survive on, topped with layers of empty promises and failed plans for meaningful change.  

Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General, 13 August 2024