South Africa's unemployed sitting at 7.8 million people
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Category: Labour Market and Economics
Date: 1 March 2023 Statistics South Africa published South Africa's unemployment numbers for the 4th quarter of 2022. While the formal unemployment rate decline from 32.9% to 32.7^% this number is pretty deceiving and doesnt really provide a clear picture of just how many people are unemployed in South Africa.
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Total number of unemployed and long term unemployment
The image below provides a clearer picture of the unemployment crisis in South Africa. A whopping 7.8 million people in South Africa are currently unemployed and of those 78.3% of them have been deems as long term unemployed (so has been unemployed for more than a year).
That is a shockingly high number of unemployed. Especially of we consider the number of income tax payers in South Africa. According to the South African Revenue Service 2021 tax statistics South Africa had 5.2 million income tax payers. This is less than the number of unemployed in South Africa. This just shows that the small tax base, at least in terms of personal income tax is heavily outweighed by the masses that are unemployed and dependent on government grants and support for survival.
This type of skewness in terms of tax payers vs state dependency is not sustainable and something will eventually give. Either tax payers will start to revolt against paying taxes or they will leave the country.
This type of skewness in terms of tax payers vs state dependency is not sustainable and something will eventually give. Either tax payers will start to revolt against paying taxes or they will leave the country.