For decades, doom-mongers in the country’s media have claimed South Africa’s democratic transition would bring only “jobless growth.” The numbers, however, tell a different story: employment nearly doubled between 1994 and 2008, transforming millions of lives and laying the groundwork for the rise of a new middle class.

Since 1994, the refrain from doom-mongers in the South African media has been persistent: South Africa’s economy, they alleged, was incapable of generating jobs. Editorials, columns, and TV debates routinely warned that new democratic rule would bring only “jobless growth,” deepening the country’s crisis. Yet the reality was a silent revolution in employment, especially in the first 15 years of democracy.

According to archival data drawn by The Common Sense, formal employment rose from just under 8 million in 1994 to nearly 14 million by 2008. Every year, new jobs appeared not only in construction and public works, but in services, trade, and a growing financial sector. Women and young people entered the workforce in record numbers. Township and rural economies began to see local entrepreneurship flourish.

The doom-mongers missed the actual effect of early reforms. Job creation allowed millions to gain their first access to credit, homeownership, and upward mobility. Household incomes rose, the tax base widened, and the country’s new consumers began to reshape entire industries. Where commentators saw only rising unemployment, they failed to track the emergence of a new black middle class, growth in small businesses, and the expansion of economic opportunity across provinces.

While the last decade has seen stagnation and renewed frustration, the facts remain: employment levels and household security today are far higher than at the dawn of democracy. The real lesson from this period is that doom-mongers in the South African media were simply wrong. South Africa’s early years of democracy showed that with the right mix of growth and policy certainty, job creation could change the lives of millions. Today’s challenges should be faced with the same realism and optimism that once turned around the labour market against all the odds.