Lights were on, yet SA's unemployment rate rose to 33.5% in Q2, edging back to record high – Stats SA

Eskom kept the lights on from April to June, but that was not enough of an economic jolt to arrest the swelling ranks of the unemployed. 

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday that the unemployment rate climbed to 33.5% during the period from 32.9% in Q1, when the economy shrank 0.1%. This brings the rate to within two percentage points of the record high of 35.3% recorded in the last quarter of 2021. 

Under the expanded definition, which includes discouraged job seekers, the rate increased 0.7 of a percentage point to 42.6%.

During the period, 111,000 jobs were shed in the trade sector and 45,000 in agriculture. Measured by provinces, the Western Cape still has the lowest unemployment rate at 22.2%, while North West topped the charts at 41.3%. 

Based on the expanded definition, the unemployment rate in North West is a staggering 54.2%. 



The latest read once again underscores the depressing scale of South Africa’s unemployment problem, which exacerbates the challenges of poverty and inequality. 

A major concern is that the unemployment rate maintained its rise while other data suggests the economy barely grew in Q2 despite the fact that there were no nationwide rotating blackouts during the period, which admittedly was also marred by local power cuts. 

Eskom’s woes have long been sighted as the biggest constraint to economic growth and job creation in South Africa, but clearly it needs to keep the lights on over a much longer timeframe to spark meaningful investment and activity. 

Political uncertainty around the election and its outcome no doubt detracted from Eskom’s performance, and most of the other economic data from the period suggests the economy avoided a recession but only grew by the slimmest of margins. It also means that South Africans cast their ballots in May against this lacklustre economic backdrop.  

Another data set published on Tuesday showed that mining production fell 3.5% year-on-year in June and on a seasonally adjusted basis by 0.9% in Q2 compared to Q1. This means the sector will be a drag on the gross domestic product (GDP) number for Q2. 

Technical recession