Unemployment edges up to 33.7% in third quarter of 2026
Stats SA's latest labour force survey shows unemployment nudging up to 33.7%, even as formal-sector jobs grew and youth joblessness eased slightly.
The country’s official jobless rate crept up slightly between July and September, according to SAnews, which reported on the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) from Statistics South Africa. The rate now stands at 33.7%, compared with 33.6% in the previous quarter.
Stats SA released the results on Tuesday. The number of people with work grew by 101 000 to 16.8 million. At the same time, 97 000 more people were counted as unemployed, bringing that group to 8.6 million. The labour force as a whole grew by 198 000, or 0.8%, which explains why the rate rose even though more people found work.
Where jobs were gained and lost
The formal sector added 268 000 jobs, taking its total to 12.3 million. The informal sector shed 98 000 jobs and the household sector lost 68 000.
Among industries, the biggest gains were in:
- Finance, with 111 000 more jobs
- Manufacturing, with 33 000 more
- Mining, with 31 000 more
The sharpest falls were in private households (68 000), agriculture (34 000) and construction (8 000).
By province, employment grew most in the Western Cape (48 000), followed by North West (45 000), the Eastern Cape (36 000) and Gauteng (25 000). The Free State lost 34 000 jobs and Mpumalanga lost 30 000.
Other measures of joblessness
The official rate counts only people who are actively looking for work. Stats SA also tracks wider measures. The rate that adds people working fewer hours than they would like fell by 0.1 percentage point to 36.5%. The measure that adds people who want work but are not actively searching, or are not available to start, rose by 0.2 of a point to 44.0%. The broadest measure, which combines all of these groups, held steady at 46.3%.
The number of discouraged work-seekers grew by 70 000 to 3.7 million. Other available job-seekers fell by 1 000 to 860 000, while the unavailable group stayed at 44 000. The potential labour force rose by 69 000 to 4.6 million. The number of people outside the labour force fell by 82 000 to 17.0 million.
What this means for young job seekers
Young people aged 15 to 34 remain the hardest hit. Their unemployment rate dipped by 0.1 of a percentage point to 47.3%, and the number of jobless youth fell by 23 000 to 5.0 million. However, the number of employed youth also slipped, by 5 000, to 5.5 million.
For people looking for work, the figures suggest that opportunities are more likely to be in the formal sector, particularly finance, manufacturing and mining. Informal work, domestic work and farming shrank over the quarter.
This story is based on reporting by SAnews.
