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A few days ago, The Common Sense published a deep-dive analysis of what sits behind South Africa’s low rate of economic growth by showing the linkages between investor confidence, fixed investment, and growth. That report showed how confidence strengthened after 1994 and peaked before 2008, but sank since, causing fixed investment to follow the same downward path to a point where it came to trail South Africa’s emerging-market peers badly. The result has been persistently weak economic growth, at a rate of around a quarter of that of the country’s emerging-market peers. But the chain of linkages that started with confidence extends a few steps beyond growth into the world of employment and, through that, to the living standards of people broadly, to end in the country’s politics.

Take the example of the chart below, which tracks South Africa’s rate of growth since 1994 along with the number of people in employment.

What it shows is the extent to which the two indicators move in unison with each other. The rate of economic growth lifted strongly in the aftermath of the 1998 Asian crisis to break through the 3% and 4% levels and then to hold at 5% between 2004 and 2007. Thereafter, it fell flat. The number of people in employment lifted strongly into that same 2008 peak to almost double from the figure in 1994. Today, however, the number of people in jobs is around two million higher than it was in 2008, compared with the roughly seven million net new jobs created between 1994 and 2008.

Stay with the broader unemployment problem that arose from that and do some contemporary comparisons.

The chart below compares South Africa’s short-term unemployment data for 2024, 2025, and an estimate for 2026 with that of the global average, developing economies, and the like.

The result is stark, with South Africa holding to an unemployment rate that is a good five times above the global average.

The only route out of that is to lift the rate of economic growth back to the 4% to 5% level and then to hold it there for the next two decades. Pretend the government and big business got serious about reform and did that – what would the result be in terms of jobs?

The answer is set out on the chart below, which projects South Africa’s growth rate lifting slowly over the next five years to reach a level of 5% and then holding there for the subsequent 15 years. Along with that is shown the effect this will likely have on the number of people in employment.

Those are pretty amazing data and will be the inevitable consequence of getting growth up.

The change in the number of people with jobs will, in turn, shift the rate of unemployment, and those data are set out on the chart below. Note, though, that at first the rate seems to hold before dipping. The reason is that the number of people actively looking for work is expected to increase sharply as the economy starts to fire, and this will have the effect of appearing to “support” the unemployment rate. South Africa’s labour market participation rate, which measures what share of people of working age are actively looking for work, is a few points lower than that of its peers because the growth rate has been so low and people knew they would not find work.

But even accounting for a rising participation rate the unemployment rate should fall to near 20% within a generation just by getting the growth rate up.

A final point is to “measure” what the cost of the low-growth and high-joblessness numbers have been. There are two ways to do that.

The best economic measure is per capita GDP. This measures all value created in the economy divided per capita and adjusted for the rate of inflation. It is set out on the chart below.

Note how strongly the number climbed into 2008, but that South Africans have become poorer year after year for most of the period since.

Next, measure the political effect by comparing African National Congress (ANC) support in national elections with the per capita GDP figure.

The result is again stark. ANC support virtually tracks the GDP figure. That all makes sense, with polls consistently showing that the predominant motivator of political behaviour in South Africa is the material circumstances of its people. Jobs are the number-one issue that South Africans say they want and need for their lives to improve.

This stuff is elementary. Drive the right reforms and it will all happen, just as it has been true for all South Africa’s emerging-market peers that record higher rates of growth. It is extraordinary, then, that the government and big business still cannot bring themselves to support the requisite reform package.