Maluleke disputes Capitec CEO’s unemployment rate claims

Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke meets with the delegation from Namibia’s Statistics Agency at Statistics South Africa’s (Stats SA) Head Office in Pretoria on May 12, 2025.

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Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke has called on Capitec CEO Gerrie Fourie to publicly present his method of determining South Africa’s unemployment rate.

This comes after Fourie questioned Statistics South Africa’s (Stats SA) employment figures.

He has argued that the country’s unemployment data excludes those employed in the informal sector.

Fourie also says that if the individuals were to be added, then the unemployment rate would be close to 10%.

Maluleke says Stats SA’s data is beyond reproach.

He says, “About three weeks ago, I released the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS). We have reported on the informal sector and I said the number of people in the informal sector are 3.3 million and they account for about 19.9% of all people employed in South Africa.”

Maluleke adds, “If he says unemployment is sitting at 10%, it means 10% of 25 million, we’d have 2.5 million people who are unemployed in South Africa and then it means that we have 22.5 million people who are employed. The SARS (South African Revenue Service), from personal income tax doesn’t even have such numbers for starters.”- Reporting by Kholo Tefo.