New dawn unemployment promise falls short

When President Cyril Ramaphosa took office in 2018, he promised to address the nation’s sky-high unemployment and youth unemployment rates, but seven years later, the rate of unemployed South Africans continues to soar.

At his first State of the Nation address, the president promised the country a “new dawn” with vast improvements to the economy and job creation. 

He said that the creation of jobs was “at the centre of the national agenda” and that youth unemployment was “our most grave and most pressing challenge.”

“We are going to embark on a number of measures to address the unemployment challenge,” he said.

Ramaphosa held the Jobs Summit shortly after his address, where a framework was agreed to that would supposedly create 275,000 jobs a year. 

Seven years later, statistics show that these initiatives have not been enough to curb the growing unemployment crisis, with the expanded unemployment rate for Q2 rising to 42.9%. 

The latest StatsSA labour force survey for the second quarter of 2025 indicates that the official unemployment rate has risen to 33.2%. 

When Ramaphosa took office in 2018, the official unemployment rate was 27.2%.

In the same time period, youth unemployment for those between the ages of 15 and 24 rose from 53.7% to 62.2%. 

Additionally, StatsSA found that 140,000 more people became unemployed in the first half of 2025, bringing the total number to 8.4 million people. 

Breaking down the unemployment numbers

The official unemployment rate of 33.2% is calculated by taking the number of unemployed citizens in the working-age population and subtracting those who are not economically active, including discouraged work-seekers. 

This number indicates a steady increase in unemployment since Ramaphosa took office, despite showing a 0.3 percentage point drop from last year’s second quarter results. 

The expanded unemployment rate of 42.9% includes those in the working-age population who are not economically active, including discouraged job seekers. 

The number of discouraged job seekers has risen from 2.9 million in 2018 to 3.4 million in 2025, making the total number of working-age South Africans who are not economically active 16.6 million. 

The youth unemployment rate for those between the ages of 15 and 24 has risen from 53.7% in 2018 to 62.2% in 2025. 

In 2018, the percentage of young people between the ages of 15 and 34 who were not in employment, education or training was about 39.3%. This has since risen to 43.9%.

When celebrating Youth Day in June this year, Ramaphosa said the Presidential Employment Stimulus and the Presidential Youth Employment Interventions have provided more than two million jobs since 2020.

He added that the extent of the unemployment crisis requires government initiatives to focus not solely on allocating formal, existing jobs, but also on fostering entrepreneurship.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) said that the talk is not enough, and criticised ANC-backed economic policies following the release of the latest quarterly report.

The party said that they are deeply concerned about the new statistics, adding that this indicates the urgency to introduce economic reforms. 

“It is abundantly clear: the ANC’s economic policies are not working and are only driving more and more South Africans into misery,” said Michael Bagraim, DA Spokesperson on Employment and Labour, whose party is now in a coalition with the ANC.

“The old ways of doing things will not get South Africans working again. ANC economic policies are designed to benefit a politically-connected elite, rather than those who have actually been excluded from economic opportunity.”

StatsSA wrote that “efforts to address youth unemployment require a comprehensive approach encompassing education reform, skills development initiatives, and targeted employment programs.”

“Collaboration between the government, private sector, and civil society is essential to create an enabling environment for youth employment.”

“Moreover, policies promoting entrepreneurship and small business development can empower young people to create their own opportunities,” it added.