An assessment by The Common Sense’s Econ Desk shows that South Africa’s rate of unemployment is abnormal.

This year, the global unemployment rate is expected to be around 5%. There is little variation in the unemployment rate for advanced, developed, or emerging economies.

An unemployment rate of near 5% is seen by many economists as a figure of virtually zero in the sense that there will always be a small share of people in an economy who have dropped out of work or are between jobs.

South Africa’s figure is very different. The official rate of unemployment is above 30%. Amongst young people, that number rises to over 50%. Even amongst university graduates, the figure is high at around 15%.

The Common Sense’s assessment shows that South Africa has, on average, created around 100 000 net new jobs per point of GDP growth per year and that this average has held remarkably true for the past 30 years.

Should that continue to be the case, then South Africa would need to record an economic growth rate of 5% of GDP for 20 years in order to bring the official rate of unemployment down from its current levels to nearer 10%.