While the national unemployment rate has increased again, Cape Town has maintained its status as having the lowest broad unemployment rate of all of South Africa’s metros, adding 43 000 new jobs between October and December 2023.

This in contrast to the national statistics, which saw 22 000 people lose their jobs during the same period.

Employment increased by 7,4% year-on-year in Cape Town, with 1,788 million people now employed in the Mother City.

Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says these numbers show the City is on the right track:

Many of these 43 000 new jobs are Capetonians who have never worked before. Imagine the life changing transformative power of being able to work and earn an income, for the first time. It is really wonderful to see this happening in our city.

Employment increases in Cape Town were particularly high in the industries of trade and finance in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The City says its flagship workforce development programme, Jobs Connect, played a central role in a Ryan O’Connor Breakfast show campaign which ran from September to December to help 10,000 Capetonians find employment opportunities.

The campaign secured 12,914 employment opportunities for Capetonians. The bulk of the jobs created – 9,147 are in call centres across the metro and came via CapeBPO, the City’s Special Purpose Vehicle in the industry.

Nationally, nearly 8 million South Africans of working age (32,1%) are unemployed.

It is especially young people who remain vulnerable, and the fourth quarter results show that young people are both struggling to find jobs, and are also losing their jobs.

The total number of unemployed youth (15-34 years) increased by 87 000 to 4.7 million, while there was a decrease of 97 000 in the number of employed youth to 5.9 million.

This resulted in an increase in the youth unemployment rate by 0.9 of a percentage point from 43.4% to 44.3%.

The overall national unemployment rate according to the expanded definition (which includes discouraged work seekers) stands at 41.1%.