Jobs bloodbath in South Africa

Member of Parliament and Standing Committee on Finance member Alan Beesley wants President Cyril Ramaphosa to take action on the country’s jobs bloodbath.

Beesley is a chartered accountant and holds a Master’s Degree in Development Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

He is a respected figure in the South African business community and served as a councillor of the eThekwini Municipality before joining Parliament.

Beesley wrote a letter to Ramaphosa, asking that the ministers responsible for the jobs bloodbath and unemployment have their suitability reviewed and, hopefully, be fired.

“There must be consequences for underperforming Ministers as there are real consequences for those losing their jobs,” he said.

He added that President Cyril Ramaphosa has presided over the worst unemployment crisis South Africa has ever seen.

Beesley’s letter followed the latest unemployment data from Statistics South Africa, which raised serious concerns.

South Africa’s unemployment rate rose to 32.7%, with losses in a number of sectors, including construction and community and social services.

Youth are the hardest hit, with unemployment rates reaching staggering 60.9% for ages 15 to 24 and 40.6% for ages 25 to 34.

“Of the 42.2 million individuals in the working-age population, 21.0 million were aged 15-34 years,” Statistics South Africa said.

Despite their large share of the population, youth labour market outcomes remain unfavourable, which, in turn, causes many social ills.

The rise in the number of unemployed, now at 8.1 million, is a blow for South Africa’s fragile economy that is also confronting fresh challenges from the war in Iran.

These challenges prompted the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last month to lower its 2026 economic growth forecast for the nation to 1.0% from 1.4% previously.

Alan Beesley’s letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa

Dear President Ramaphosa,

I write to you following the release of Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of 2026, which paints a devastating picture of deepening unemployment, economic stagnation, and growing despair among millions of South Africans.

The latest figures reveal that South Africa lost 345,000 jobs in just three months, while the official unemployment rate increased from 31.4% to 32.7%.

More alarmingly, the expanded unemployment rate — which includes discouraged work-seekers — now stands at a historical high of 43.7%.

The tragedy is compounded by the fact that the very Ministers entrusted with enabling economic growth, investment, and job creation are instead presiding over the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs South Africans already had.

Particularly concerning is the sharp increase in discouraged work-seekers, which rose by 178,000 in a single quarter to nearly 4 million people.

This reflects not merely unemployment, but a growing collapse in public confidence that meaningful economic opportunity exists at all.

Today, fewer than four in ten working-age South Africans are employed.

These are not abstract statistics. They represent millions of South Africans deprived of the dignity of work, families unable to put food on the table, young people losing hope in their future, and communities sinking deeper into poverty and dependency.

Equally alarming is the finding that 37.6% of South Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 are not in employment, education or training.

This represents a generational crisis that threatens long-term economic stability and social cohesion.

President Ramaphosa, these outcomes cannot simply be attributed to global economic conditions or unfortunate circumstances.

They are the direct result of policy failure, economic stagnation, court rulings, compounding the financial and administrative damage.

This matter has also had devastating human consequences. Thousands of road accident victims, many of whom are among the most vulnerable in society, were unjustly prevented from lodging legitimate claims.

 The impact of this failure has been borne disproportionately by those least able to absorb it.

The scale and severity of the consequences arising from the RAF’s irrational and unlawful conduct are immense and will be felt for generations to come.

ActionSA will be exploring all available legal avenues, including the potential for criminal charges against those responsible to ensure they deservedly are locked up in orange overalls without delay.

South Africans cannot be expected to carry the cost of reckless governance and systemic failure of this magnitude.

Official unemployment rate in South Africa