-
FILE IMAGE | Men hold placards offering temporary employment services while waiting for potential customers.
Parliamentary Coordinator at Cosatu, Matthew Parks says while a marginal drop in the unemployment rate is welcome news, the overall unemployment situation in the country is not cause for celebration.
His comments come after the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Stats SA showed that the official unemployment rate decreased by 0.5 percentage points from 31.9% in the third quarter of 2025 to 31.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Parks says unemployment remains a crisis in the country.
“While we welcome this news, we must remain cautious. This is for the last quarter of the year 2025. And there’s normally an uptake in the employment figures over the festive season. What is critical is to see how we maintain that momentum in the first quarter of the year when decrease of the festive season ends,” says Parks.
“But also, while we appreciate any new jobs, whilst we appreciate when unemployment is falling, we cannot celebrate when we have an unemployment number of 42.1% overall, where 4 out of 10 South Africans can’t find work, when 6 out of 10 young people can’t find work, when the economy is barely growing at 1,4%,” he adds.
Data released by Statistics South Africa shows that young people remain vulnerable in the job market, with the rate of youth unemployment increasing by 0.1-percentage point to 43.8% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The data further indicates that the largest employment gains were recorded in the Western Cape, Mpumalanga, North West and the Northern Cape.
Xhanti Payi on SA’s latest jobs data:
