Today’s QLFS (Quarterly Labour Force Survey) release covering October to December of 2025, shows that South Africa can overcome our unemployment emergency, provided the right policies, governance and leadership are in place.
The numbers show clearly that where the DA governs and leads, jobs are created!
The Western Cape, under DA-governance led by Premier Alan Winde, continues to have the lowest unemployment rate in the country, at 18.1%, after creating 93 000 jobs!
This is compared to a national rate of 31.4% and Gauteng, the country’s economic hub, losing 54 000 jobs.
Minister Dean Macpherson has been working flat out on his pledge to turn South Africa into a construction site, and the result in the jobs numbers is now consistently visible, with 35 000 construction jobs created in the last quarter.
In this quarter South Africa has seen record agricultural exports, and these have also brought 30 000 more jobs, under DA Minister John Steenhuisen.
Employment is dignity, and the DA will continue to fight to lower unemployment across South Africa.
Creating more jobs, for more people is precisely why the DA keeps calling for more urgent reforms after the President’s SONA.
To stimulate job creation for all South Africans, President Ramaphosa must:
- Review and Replace BEE , which has only led to more exclusion;
- Outlaw cadre deployment and political interference;
- Act decisively against crime and corruption, not with short term bandaids, but systemic expansion of policing powers; and
- Allow the private sector more access to our rail and ports, so the world can receive more of our exports.
Unemployment can be overcome in South Africa. The DA is South Africa’s blueprint.