Young people remain the hardest hit by unemployment in South Africa, even though the rate for the group decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 47.3%.

This is as the official unemployment rate edged higher to 33.7% in the third quarter of this year, as recorded by the Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Statistics South Africa.

At the same time, Black African women also continue to face the greatest barriers in the labour market, with their unemployment rate sitting above the national average at 52.9%.

Head of private clients at Vunani Securities, Warwick Lucas, says the fundamental problem is that South Africa is not growing quickly enough.

“Even though we’re showing a little bit of economic growth, a little bit over 1%, it’s not enough. And a lot of the growth that we do achieve is in sectors that don’t employ lots and lots of additional workers. We need more growth in construction, manufacturing, agriculture, logistics and small businesses alongside these infrastructural improvements that have been touted around and sometimes implemented, and we need less barriers to employment. So creating jobs isn’t enough. We need to create them faster than the number of people who are entering the labour market.”

🧵#SAunemployment || The official unemployment rate increased by 0,1 of a percentage point to 33,7% in Q3:2026 compared to Q2:2026.

Read more here: https://t.co/gX9olSIBva

#StatsSA #KnowYourStatsZA #GovZAUpdates #SAemployment https://t.co/dnTLXVdUzD

— Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) (@StatsSA) November 10, 2026

Meanwhile, the agricultural sector registered a decline in employment in the third quarter.

Agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo says there’s been a decline in employment on an annual basis across most provinces, apart from the Western Cape and Limpopo.

“In those two provinces, there was a mild improvement, and we think that vegetable and fruit production and the job opportunities that they bring are the ones that have sustained employment at more robust levels in those two provinces. But generally, when one looks at the employment of 911 000, it’s well above the long-term employment levels in this sector, which is typically around 800 000. So, in a way, we can see that there are definitely some challenges in the sector, but farmers have maintained a fairly resilient employment level in the sector.”

Meanwhile, the number of discouraged jobseekers rose by 70 000 to 3.7 million, suggesting that more people are losing hope of finding employment.