Zwelinzima Vavi | SAFTU General Secretary  

The latest data released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) on Tuesday, May 14, marks the final Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) before the upcoming polls on May 29. According to Stats SA, South Africa's unemployment rate climbed to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2024, showing a rise of 0.8 percentage points from 32.1% in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The surge in unemployment has become a major focal point in the lead-up to the 2024 elections, overshadowing previous campaign topics like gender-based violence and land expropriation.

This development deals a blow to the ruling party, which would have anticipated more favourable figures to present to voters so close to the polls. Despite a significant reduction in load shedding during the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, with South Africa experiencing its longest uninterrupted streak of 49 days without power cuts, this improvement has had little impact on the country's unemployment rate.

According to Stats SA's presentation accompanying the data, the number of unemployed individuals rose to 8.2 million in Q1 of 2024 from 7.9 million in Q4 of 2023, indicating an increase of over 300,000 unemployed individuals between the two quarters.