Issued by Ismail Joosub on behalf of the FW de Klerk Foundation on 26/08/2025

In light of Money Smart Week 2025 and Women’s Month, we must look with renewed urgency at South Africa’s employment realities. South Africa’s jobs crisis has deepened. The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (“QLFS”) shows the official unemployment rate rising to 33,2% in Q2:2025, with 140 000 more people unemployed than in the previous quarter and only 19 000 additional jobs created. The expanded rate remains an unacceptably high 42,9%.

Our constitutional yardstick is clear. Section 10 guarantees everyone inherent dignity; section 22 protects the freedom to choose a trade, occupation or profession; section 9 requires equal protection and benefit of the law, prohibiting unfair discrimination, including on the ground of sex or gender. Economic policy and administration that leave millions excluded from work or enterprise undermine these rights and the promise of substantive equality.

The burden falls most heavily on the young. Youth unemployment (15-34) stands at 46,1%, entrenching intergenerational poverty and sapping social cohesion. Rebuilding confidence requires visible pathways from learning to earning – apprenticeships, artisan training, community-based work experience and small-business incubation that culminate in real jobs.

Women face a distinctly harsher reality. National unemployment is 33,2%, yet women are at 35,9% compared to 31,0% for men – a gap of 4,9 percentage points. The labour-force participation gap also remains wide: 65,6% of working-age men are in the labour force versus 54,9% of women, translating into millions of women excluded from the economy’s mainstream.

Education helps, but does not close the gap. Among graduates, unemployment sits at 12,2% overall, yet female graduates face 15,0% unemployment versus 8,9% for males. Among those without a National Senior Certificate, unemployment for women is 42,8% (men 37,0%); even those who have attained a  National Senior Certificate , the gender gap widens (39,3% for women vs 31,7% for men). These patterns reflect systemic barriers that persist across the skills spectrum.

Segregation by sector and occupation compounds the problem. Nearly a third of employed women (32,8%) work in community and social services, followed by trade (20,6%), finance (18,0%) and private households (11,4%) – with continued under-representation in transport (2,5%), construction (1,9%) and mining (1,0%). Only 6,8% of employed women occupy managerial roles (men 10,7%), while a larger share find themselves in elementary, clerical and sales roles.

Vulnerability is starkest in the informal and unprotected economy. Close to 1,2 million women – 15,9% of employed women – work in the informal sector, often without written contracts, pensions or medical aid. The informal employment rate for women is 27,2%, meaning more than one in four employed women lack basic protections. Care burdens also keep women out of the workforce: in Q2:2025, 2,1 million people citing “homemaker” as the reason for inactivity were women (about 88% of that group).

By international comparison, our position is untenable: the International Labour Organisation projects the global unemployment rate at about 4,9% in 2024, which is dramatically lower than South Africa’s.

At the FW de Klerk Foundation’s “Achieving an Inclusive Economy Conference”, last month, we advanced a practical agenda to restore confidence, investment and work, especially for women and the youth. The Foundation reiterated that constitutionalism and inclusion are mutually reinforcing: rights-respecting institutions, clean and capable administration (section 195) and predictable, rules-based economic governance are preconditions for job-rich growth.

Accordingly, the FW de Klerk Foundation calls for an immediate, gender-responsive employment compact anchored in constitutional principles and measurable outcomes:

• Remove barriers to entry for women and youth-owned SMMEs by simplifying licensing, cutting red tape and expanding access to affordable micro-finance and public procurement opportunities with transparent, competitive processes.
• Invest in care, safety and connectivity: community-based childcare, safe late-hour transport and digital access to enable women to work, train and trade.
• Earn-while-you-learn pipelines: scale apprenticeships and paid internships linked to artisanal, green-economy, health and digital roles, with hiring tax incentives tied to completion and retention.
• Skills to firm demand: align TVET and university outputs to sectoral plans; publish skills-vacancy dashboards so training leads to jobs, not queues.
• Fair work and advancement: enforce equal pay for equal work; expand mentoring and sponsorship for women into management; set transparent promotion criteria across the public service and SOEs.
• Local investment and export diversification: crowd in private capital for municipal maintenance and housing upgrades that create immediate jobs; reduce trade bottlenecks so competitive firms can scale hiring.

Women’s Month 2025 carries the theme “Building Resilient Economies for All”. Realising that promise requires turning data into delivery by placing dignity, equality and freedom of trade at the centre of policy and administration. The Foundation stands ready to work with government, business, labour and civil society to implement a constitutional, youth and gender-focused plan that gets South Africa working again.