South Africa’s real unemployment rate is between 10% and 15%

Former Capitec chief executive Gerrie Fourie said that South Africa’s unemployment rate of 33% is a myth, as grant recipients would not declare they have a job.

Fourie shared his views on South Africa’s unemployment rate during a discussion with economist Dawie Roodt during an Efficient Group Market Call.

In May 2026, Statistics South Africa announced that the country’s official unemployment rate increased to 32.7%.

“The labour force shed an estimated 345 000 jobs, with the biggest losses recorded in community, social services, and construction,” it said.

“Five other industries also recorded job losses. Three industries recorded modest employment gains: agriculture, mining, and manufacturing.”

The Statistics South Africa data further showed that youth aged 15 to 24 currently face the highest unemployment rate at 60.9%.

These figures raised serious concerns about the South African economy, but Fourie dismissed the unemployment data as a myth.

“South Africa’s unemployment rate is definitely not 33%, and nobody will convince me that it is 33%,” he said. “Our unemployment rate is actually between 10% and 15%.”

He explained that one problem is that people receiving social grants are asked whether they are employed or unemployed.

“The moment they say employed, they risk losing their grant. There is no way they are going to answer that they are employed,” Fourie said.

He explained that they have reviewed all of Capitec’s internal data for clients receiving social grants.

“When you compare their social grant income against their other income streams, their other income is actually about five times higher,” he said.

This clearly showed that social grant recipients who say they are unemployed have other sources of income from employment or a business.

The methodology to track unemployment should change

In South Africa, unemployment is tracked and reported by Stats SA, using the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS).

The QLFS is a household-based sample survey that collects data on the labour market activities of individuals aged 15 to 64 years living in South Africa.

The survey samples roughly 33,000 private dwelling units and worker hostels across all nine provinces every quarter.

Respondents in the survey are asked about their economic activities during a specific reference week.

Their feedback is used to determine whether they are employed, underemployed, looking for work, or completely outside the labour force.

Fourie argued that this methodology is poor and does not give a true reflection of what is really happening in South Africa’s labour market.

“I had the Minister and officials from Stats SA in my office, and we debated this. They insisted that their statistics were correct,” Fourie said.

“I said that we should look into it. You have these seven or eight survey questions that you ask. What credibility do you really have when asking them?” he asked.

“I will bet you that if you took those exact same eight questions and had a Capitec consultant ask them instead, we would get a completely different answer.”

Fourie said that the Minister and Stats SA officials agreed with him. “Ultimately, they admitted that the methodology needs to change,” he said.

“They acknowledged that they don’t fully understand the informal market and need to develop a different, more accurate definition of unemployment tailored for South Africa.”