South Africa’s economic recovery is set to be complicated by the country’s persistently high unemployment rate. The crisis was underscored by comments from one of South Africa’s biggest trade union federations, the South Africa Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU).

SAFTU warned that ongoing retrenchments are devastating every sector of our economy and declared that every job loss is a crisis, and every closure is an attack on our class – the working class.

Data show that South Africa’s official unemployment rate stands over 30%, one of the highest globally and more than three times the average for African economies, which sits at nearer 10%. Economic growth has sputtered below 1% per year since 2019, and business confidence remains subdued, with the most recent quarterly reading at 35 out of 100, well below the 80+ readings recorded during the years of rapid employment growth in the early 2000s.

Fixed investment as a share of GDP has fallen to 15.0%, which is about half the average level of South Africa’s emerging market peers.

The political implications for the ANC are stark. Under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, the number of South Africans with jobs nearly doubled, lifting ANC support at the polls. But since 2008, as job creation stagnated and unemployment climbed, ANC electoral dominance has steadily eroded. SAFTU’s warning is a reminder that the costs of economic drift are not just material, but political.

South Africa’s jobless crisis makes any recovery project for the ANC immensely difficult. Without rapid, market-led reforms to reignite growth and draw millions into the workforce, the country will struggle to break the cycle of stagnation, and the ANC’s political future will remain hostage to the unemployment figures.