“People simply stopped talking about the severity of the problem,” says Loos. “Perhaps unemployment [has become] too big to solve. It is easier to accept the high unemployment rate and take it as a given in planning or when doing economic forecasts.” It became a fixed variable, he adds.

One problem is that many economists, businesses and executives have a short-term planning horizon. “They might have an opinion whenever unemployment figures are announced, mainly focusing in the short-term trend. [But] the severity of the problem is being ignored. It is not being talked about.” The trend is shocking … Looking at the figures over a longer period, rather than quarter-on-quarter or annual changes, highlights the problem.

The number of unemployed people in SA increased by nearly 80% from less than 4.4 million in 2008 to more than 7.8 million at the last count during the fourth quarter of 2025. These are idle workers actively searching for work every week. When discouraged work seekers are included, the total rises to almost 11.6 million – versus less than 4.6 million in 2008.

Thus, the total number of people who are unemployed, and who can and potentially want to work, has increased by 153% since 2008. Even worse, unemployment durations have lengthened, with around 80% of those without jobs having been unemployed for more than a year. Statistics SA show unmistakable trend since 2008 The statistics were easy to find in an attachment to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey conducted by Statistics SA in the last quarter of 2025.

Monthly data since 2008 clearly shows the unmistakable trend. The working-age population increased by 33%, and people entered the labour force at a similar rate, also growing by close to 33%. However, employment rose by only 18.4% over the same period, leading to the increase of nearly 80% in the sheer number of unemployed workers.

The result was the increase in the unemployment rate from 23.2% at the beginning of 2008 to 31.4% by the end of December 2025, according to the narrow definition of unemployment. When adding discouraged work seekers to the mix, the picture worsens significantly. The number of discouraged work seekers (those who just gave up and did not look for a job in the four weeks prior to the survey) increased by 209%, from 1.2 million in 2008 to 3.7 million coming into 2026.

The expanded unemployment rate increased from 27.8% in 2008 to 40.3% at the end of 2025. Expanded unemployment rate Loos says high unemployment is one of the reasons for the “terrible state” of SA’s national finances. “The main reasons for the challenges faced by National Treasury are the high interest rate payments on debt and the high dependence on social grants.

“Interest and social grant payments are crowding out fiscal spending. It is a massive problem: There is no money to grow the economy and unemployed keeps getting worse,” he says. “The payment of social grants to a large part of the population that is not contributing to the economy puts strain on the whole system, from education to health.” Decades Loos says the massive unemployment problem can improve, but it will take decades of hard work.

“Anybody who is 60 years old will not see a significant, long-term improvement in the unemployment rate in their lifetime. “There is no easy fix. It will take hard policy decisions and years of dedicated, hard work.” However, he says the situation can improve, and quite quickly – if government gives the private sector the freedom to get involved.

“We can see a quick improvement with structural reforms. Privatise the economy. Allow [the] private sector to supply goods and services.

SA has the biggest and best developed private sector on the African continent, and it is well funded. “Economic growth of 3% and 4% is possible if government makes policy changes. There has been success in this with the recovery in electricity supply, as well as transport and logistics.

We need more. “I see the role of government largely as a regulator, rather than a supplier of goods and services. Regulate and regulate well,” says Loos.

“Unemployment will reduce, quite quickly.” Low employment levels Ricardo Smith, chief investment officer at Absa Investments, says the downward trend in employment levels over the past couple of years has resulted in low confidence and spending levels from both consumers and businesses. “This led to anaemic levels of economic growth, an increasing dependency ratio, fiscal pressure on government’s budget and rising government debt levels, amongs