The Economic Freedom Fighters notes, with concern, the misleading Quarter 4 (2025) results of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) report an official unemployment rate of 31.4%, down from 31.9% in Q3.
At face value, this 0.5 percentage point decline appears to signal modest improvement. According to the QLFS, the number of unemployed persons decreased by 172,000 to 7.8 million, while employment increased by 44,000 to 17.1 million.
The EFF categorically states that this so-called decline in the official unemployment rate to 31.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025 is nothing but a statistical illusion designed to pacify a suffering nation. While the government celebrates a 0.5 percentage point decrease from 31.9% in Q3, the lived reality of millions of South Africans tells a very different story.
Let us make this clear, the number of unemployed persons decreased by 172,000 to 7.8 million, and employment increased by a mere 44,000 to 17.1 million. But these numbers must be interrogated honestly and scientifically. The labour force itself shrunk by 128,000 people. When people stop actively looking for work, not because they have found jobs, but because they have lost hope they are simply removed from the official unemployment count. This is not job creation, this is statistical exclusion.
At the same time that the official unemployment figure fell, discouraged job-seekers increased by 233,000 to 3.7 million. These are South Africans who want to work, who are available to work, but who have given up searching because there are no opportunities. They are invisible in the narrow unemployment rate.
The potential labour force those of who are available but not seeking, or seeking but unavailable, increased by a net 82,000 to 4.6 million. Meanwhile, the total number of people outside the labour force rose by 248,000 to 17.1 million.
This means that while government celebrates 172,000 fewer “unemployed” people, the broader pool of jobless South Africans actually expanded. The terminology used “outside the labour force,” “discouraged work-seekers,”, “potential labour force” sanitises a brutal reality. These are not abstract categories. These are hungry households. These are young people abandoned by a failing economic system.
The crisis is even more devastating when we examine youth unemployment. Young people aged 15–24 years face an unemployment rate of 57.0%, while those aged 25– 34 years face 39.2%. This means that more than half of South Africans entering the labour market for the first time cannot find work. A nation that cannot absorb its youth is a nation in structural crisis.
The actual reality of our people is that combined unemployment and potential labour force rate stands at 42.1%. The composite measure of labour underutilisation stands at 44.5%. The truth of the matter is that nearly one in two working-age South Africans is either unemployed, underemployed, or too discouraged to continue searching for work.
The government hides behind the narrow 31,4% definition because it produces a politically convenient number. But economic justice demands that we confront the full extent of labour market failure.
The marginal increase of 44,000 jobs in an economy of over 60 million people is not progress but stagnation. It does not absorb new entrants nor does it reverse structural unemployment. It does not address the collapse of industrial capacity or the absence of transformative economic reform.
South Africans are not fooled by percentage point adjustments. A real recovery must show sustained employment growth exceeding labour force growth, a decline in discouraged work-seekers, and a shrinking extended unemployment rate, and none of this is happening.
The real official unemployment rate has declined not because the economy is working, but because millions have stopped believing it will ever work for them. Until the state confronts structural inequality, industrial decay, and youth exclusion, these quarterly “improvements” will remain statistical exercises detached from the lived experience of the majority.
The EFF has been involved in high-profile parliamentary disruptions to draw attention to issues.
Sienna Princess
Nthato Motlana – Dr. Nthato Motlana is ‘the renaissance man’ of South Africa, with successful careers in politics, medicine and business. He was the founder of NAIL and a mentor to many of the top business leaders in South Africa today. He is considered by many to be the father of economic empowerment in South Africa.