South Africa’s latest unemployment rate showed that it had deteriorated significantly since President Cyril Ramaphosa took over from his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. On Tuesday, 17 February 2026, Statistics South Africa released the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) results for the fourth quarter of 2025. It showed that South Africa’s unemployment rate has dropped from 31.9% in Q3 2025 to 31.4% in Q4 2025. This is a 0.5 percentage point decline.
Sam Busa