South Africa’s unemployment crisis is not an unsolvable puzzle. The country has all the tools it needs to bring power back to its grid, kickstart industry, and create work right now. The real answer lies in making better use of what is already on the ground: the dozens of mothballed, under-used, or run-down coal-fired power stations scattered across the country.

For years, the link between steady, affordable electricity and job creation has been obvious. When power supply grew in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economy expanded rapidly, and millions of South Africans found work. When Eskom started running out of reliable coal power and load-shedding took hold, growth tanked, investment dried up, and the country’s joblessness rate reached 33.2% in the second quarter of 2025.

Coal remains the backbone of South Africa’s electricity supply, making up 85.4% of South Africa’s total generating capacity when old and new plants are counted together. Yet far too much of that capacity sits idle or is throttled because plants are broken, neglected, or written off. The fastest way to boost supply is not by waiting for new mega-projects or betting everything on renewables. It is by refitting and restarting the country’s existing fleet of old coal stations. These plants can be overhauled and brought back online far quicker and cheaper than building from scratch. In many cases, the grid connections and water supply are already there.

Bheki Mahlobo, policy and economics editor at The Common Sense, says it best: “South Africa does not need to reinvent the wheel. For every 1% increase in electricity generation, you can expect about a 1% rise in GDP. We can get there fast by fixing and refitting the power stations we already have.”

This approach has proven successful elsewhere. In a 2022 economics policy paper published in a prestigious research journal, the International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, researchers analysed Indonesia’s experience with electricity expansion from 2001 to 2018. They found a direct, one-to-one link between increases in power supply and growth in the broader economy. Even as electricity prices rose modestly, the overall benefit for workers and businesses was clear.

Right now, manufacturing is less than 13% of South Africa’s economy, down from 21.5% in 1994, and mining is just 7.5%. High energy costs and supply failures are a big reason why. The quickest way to reverse this trend is to get reliable, low-cost power back into the system using the assets already in place.

Unlike expensive new builds, refitting old coal plants delivers results in months, not years. It creates skilled jobs in engineering and maintenance, brings back confidence to industrial towns, and helps reduce electricity costs for everyone. It also gives the country breathing room to modernize the grid for the future, including adding renewables gradually instead of risking a total collapse now.

Fail to act and South Africa’s economic decline will continue. But get moving on a national drive to refit defunct coal stations and the lights and the jobs can come back much sooner than most people think. The power stations are already there, waiting to be revived. All that is needed is the political will to make it happen.