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The Common Sense has been investing more time and resources into deep-dive analysis of the key driving forces shaping South African society and its economy. One of those is the relationship between education and work.

South Africa reports its matric pass rate every January as a measure of how the schooling system is doing. But the figure says nothing about what a matric certificate is worth once its holder starts looking for a job. To understand that better, The Common Sense analysed ten years of labour market data from Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), from 2015 to 2024, examining what each level of education delivers in employment, in the kind of work it leads to, and in what that work pays.

Working-age South Africans fall into three groups. Some are working. Some want work and do not have it, whether they are still looking or have given up looking. And some are outside the labour market altogether: studying, at home raising children, too ill to work, or retired early.

Where people work matters too. Formal work is a job with an employer who deducts tax and it usually comes with a written contract. Informal work sits outside that system, without a registered business or a contract behind it. Agriculture is counted separately, as Statistics South Africa treats farm work as its own category, whether formal or informal. The final category is that of “private households”, which includes people employed directly by a family rather than a business: three quarters are domestic workers and most of the rest are gardeners and other household staff.

The following eight charts set out the key data.

The first four charts each scale the number of working-age South Africans to an index of 100 people. In other words, it shows what the labour market would be like if there were only 100 people of working age in the country. Each of the charts does that for people by their levels of education. The chart below covers the 21.5 million who did not finish school.

The chart shows that of those 100 people, 30 are working, 30 want work and do not have it, and 40 are outside the labour market.

The second chart covers the 13.8 million people whose education ended with matric.

Forty-five are working, 15 more than among those who did not finish school. But the number who want work and cannot find it is higher, not lower: 33 against 30. The number outside the labour market falls from 40 to 22.

The third chart covers the 3.1 million people with a certificate or diploma.

Sixty-six are working, 24 want work, and 10 are not in the labour market.

The fourth chart covers the 2.4 million people with a degree.

Eighty are working. Eleven want work and do not have it. Nine are outside the labour market.

The fifth chart sets all four education levels side by side. Each bar represents 100 working-age South Africans at that level of education.

The higher the level of education obtained in South Africa, the greater the chance a person has of being employed.

The sixth chart shows the official unemployment rate at each level of education over the past decade, with the national rate for comparison.

The national rate was 32.6% in 2024. For people with a matric it was 34.6% and has sat above the national rate every year since 2015. The unemployment rate for people with a certificate or diploma was 21.5% and the rate for people with a degree or higher was 10.0%.

Graduate unemployment is less than a third of the national rate, and the only South African figure that is close to that of a functioning economy. By way of comparison, the global rate of unemployment was roughly 5.0% in 2024.

The seventh chart shows which industries formally employed South Africans work in, by level of education.

Half of formally employed graduates work in community, social, and personal services, the category containing government, education, and healthcare. With finance, insurance, and business services, two industries account for 79% of them. Manufacturing accounts for 7% of graduates and 13% of matric holders. For matric holders the largest single industry is wholesale and retail trade, at 26%.

The eighth chart shows what those industries pay.

Perhaps the main thing to read out of all these charts is the extent to which South Africa has structured its economy to take advantage of these skilled graduates whilst making it very difficult for everyone from high school graduates downwards to find employment. This in turn reflects what The Common Sense has found about the structure of South Africa’s GDP and the deindustrialisation behind that.