Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) confirmed on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, in Pretoria that the country's official unemployment rate climbed to 33.6% in the second quarter of the year. That is up from 32.7% in the first quarter, a jump of 0.9 percentage points in three months.
The number of unemployed people rose by 345,000 to 8.5 million, according to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) Q2: 2026 report. At the same time, the number of employed people actually fell, by 16,000, to 16.7 million.
What The Numbers Show
Stats SA's own release is direct about the cause: more people entered the labour market while the economy shed jobs. The labour force grew by 329,000, or 1.3%, but there weren't enough jobs to absorb the new entrants.
The above changes in employment and unemployment resulted in the official unemployment rate... increasing by 0.9 of a percentage point,
Stats SA said in its media release.
Job losses were broad-based. Employment fell in seven of the ten sectors Stats SA tracks. Community and social services shed the most jobs, down 57,000, followed by mining (-26,000), agriculture (-15,000) and manufacturing (-15,000).
Three sectors bucked the trend. Trade added 70,000 jobs, construction added 39,000, and finance added 11,000.
Which Provinces Gained And Lost Jobs
The picture varies sharply by province. Mpumalanga added 41,000 jobs, Eastern Cape added 13,000, and Free
State added 9,000.
Western Cape lost the most, down 48,000, followed by Gauteng (-22,000) and North West (-15,000).
North West also carries the heaviest overall burden. Stats SA's expanded measure, which combines
unemployment with people who want work but aren't actively searching, put North West at 56.0% and Eastern
Cape at 54.1%, the two highest rates in the country.
Beyond The Headline Rate
The 33.6% figure is the narrow, official rate. Stats SA tracks three broader measures too, and all point
the same direction.
The combined rate of unemployment and time-related underemployment (LU2) rose 0.7 percentage points to
36.6%. The combined rate of unemployment and the potential labour force (LU3) rose to 43.8%. The composite
measure (LU4), which folds in underemployment, unemployment and the potential labour force together, held
steady at 46.3%.
Read plainly: when every category of joblessness and under-work is counted, close to half of South Africa's
extended labour force is without full, formal employment.
One figure moved in the other direction. Discouraged work-seekers, people who've stopped actively looking,
fell by 227,000 to 3.7 million. Stats SA has not offered a detailed explanation for that drop, and it has
not been verified against other labour-market indicators, so treat it as a data point rather than a trend.
Youth Unemployment Still The Sharpest Problem
Cape Town Etc, reporting on the same QLFS release, put youth joblessness at 47.4% in Q2 2026. That's roughly in line with where youth unemployment has sat for years, and it remains the single most alarming number in the entire report. Young South Africans continue to carry the heaviest share of the country's jobs crisis, quarter after quarter, regardless of which way the headline rate moves.
How This Compares To Late 2025
Q2 2026's 33.6% breaks a run of good news. In Q4 2025, the unemployment rate had actually fallen to 31.4%,
its lowest level in over five years, driven by formal-sector hiring and gains in community services,
construction and finance. That improvement has now been wiped out in two quarters and then some.
What's missing from most of the coverage so far is any Stats SA breakdown of why the Q1-to-Q2 swing was this
sharp, nearly a full percentage point in one reporting period. Whether this is a one-quarter correction
after an unusually strong Q4, or the start of a fresh downward slide, has not been established, and Stats
SA's release does not address it directly.
What Happens Next
Stats SA's next Quarterly Labour Force Survey, covering Q3 2026, is expected around November 2026, though an exact date had not been published as of August 12, 2026. That release will show whether the Q2 jump was a blip tied to seasonal hiring patterns or the beginning of a longer slide back above the levels seen through 2024 and early 2025. Until then, government departments overseeing job creation and skills programmes have not issued a formal response to the Q2 figures.
