2025 Q4 QLFS: Youth Unemployment Exposed — The Budget Must Answer

The latest Q4 2025 Quarterly Labour Force Survey has just been released and its findings paint a sobering picture for millions of young South Africans, economic life is not defined by growth, but by persistent struggle for survival.

While the official youth unemployment rate for youth aged 15 – 34 marginally declined from 44.6% in Q4 2024 to 43.8% in Q4 2025, this should not be mistaken for recovery. A decade ago, youth unemployment stood at 34.9%. Today, young people are more excluded from stable work than they were ten years ago, despite repeated policy commitments to inclusive growth and job creation.

Among 15 – 24-year-olds, the official unemployment rate remains 57%, the highest of any age group. This figure only counts young people actively searching for work. Once discouraged youth are included, the data reflects a generation cycling between long-term unemployment, informal work, and survivalist income strategies rather than progressing into stable careers.

“For this generation, survival has replaced progression. Young people are getting by, but not moving forward,”said Buhlebethu Magwaza, Project Lead, at Youth Capital.

The composition of youth unemployment is particularly alarming. For every 5 unemployed young people, 4 have been without work for more than a year. Where participation has increased, it has largely been through informal and insecure work, not through entry into registered employment with benefits, protections, or pathways for advancement.

“This is not a surge in opportunity-driven entrepreneurship,” Magwaza added. “It is survivalist participation; young people creating income streams because the formal economy is failing to absorb them.”

These outcomes are not simply the result of weak growth; they reflect policy choices and governance gaps. As Youth Capital noted following the 2026 State of the Nation Address, youth unemployment continues to be acknowledged rhetorically, but it is not being governed as a national crisis. “Youth unemployment is treated as an outcome to be hoped for, not a crisis to be managed,” said Magwaza. “There are no clear national targets, no coordinating task force, and no transparent line of accountability.”

This makes the upcoming national Budget Speech a defining moment. The Budget is where priorities are revealed, trade-offs are made, and political intent is converted into action. For young people, it will answer a simple question: is youth unemployment being treated with the same urgency as other national challenges, or not?

From Youth Capital’s perspective, credibility will depend on whether the Budget moves beyond general commitments and delivers:

• Clear, time-bound youth employment targets, linked to funded programmes
• Scaled and sustained investment in public employment, recognising its role as a stabiliser in a labour market defined by long-term unemployment
• Explicit youth-focused allocations within infrastructure, industrial and green transition spending, rather than assuming jobs will “trickle down”
• Institutional ownership and coordination, with responsibility for youth unemployment clearly located and monitored

The Q4 QLFS shows clearly that youth unemployment is not easing at a meaningful pace. With over half of 15–24-year-olds unemployed and long-term unemployment now the norm for young people, marginal job gains are insufficient. Without a step change in budgeted youth employment interventions, the labour market will continue to produce new cohorts of excluded young people faster than it absorbs them.

“The youth unemployment crisis will not be solved by growth alone, nor by announcements without budgets,”Magwaza said. “If the Budget fails to introduce scale, targets and accountability, young people will remain trapped in survival mode.”

This is the test the Budget Speech must meet. Anything less will confirm what young people already experience daily: that youth unemployment is acknowledged in speeches but not treated as the national crisis it is!