FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cape Town, 10 November 2026
Statistics South Africa’s newly released Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) for the third quarter of 2026 confirms what millions of young people in South Africa know all too well: young people are losing work. While the economy added 101 000 jobs this quarter, the number of employed young people aged 15–34 fell again, to 5.5 million from 5.9 million last year. Youth unemployment remains near a record high at 47.3%, meaning almost one in two young people looking for work cannot find it.
In Q3 2026, 417 000 fewer young people aged 15–34 were employed than a year earlier. Among 15–24-year-olds, employment fell by 160 000, while the unemployment rate climbed from 58.5% to 63.6%. Only 9.8% of all young people in this age group were employed. And the crisis does not ease as young people get older: among 25–34-year-olds, employment fell by a further 257 000, while unemployment increased from 38.4% to 41.4%. This is not simply a story of young people struggling to enter the labour market; it is a failure to absorb young people into work.
These young people are at different stages of life, facing the same fundamental problem: there are simply too few pathways into work and earning.
The sectors losing employment also deserve attention. Compared with Q3 2025, the largest decline was in community and social services, where employment fell by 197 000, followed by private households (-87 000), construction (-44 000) and trade (-33 000). This matters for how we think about public employment. South Africa has also historically used public employment in community and social services and construction, from education and community-based services to labour-intensive infrastructure, road maintenance, and environmental programmes.
In Q3 2025, Phase V of the Basic Education Employment Initiative (BEEI), which ran from June to November 2025, employed more than 200 000 young people in schools. While the QLFS cannot tell us how much of the year-on-year decline in community and social services is directly attributable to the end of that phase, the comparison should sharpen an important question: what happens when one of the country’s largest sources of youth work disappears without a predictable next phase?
“Public employment requires a permanent commitment, not a stop-and-go budget strategy that ignores the ongoing crisis of unemployment,” says Buhle Magwaza, Project Lead at Youth Capital. “In a labour market that is not generating enough opportunities, public employment is one of the few instruments the government already has that can create work and income for the growing number of unemployed.”
Public employment is not a substitute for a stronger, more job-rich economy. It is what the government can do while the economy remains unable to create enough work. Programmes such as the BEEI and National Youth Service can create paid opportunities for millions, which is why their funding must be protected and ring-fenced.
Youth Capital is calling for predictable, multi-year funding for public employment, with at least one million quality paid opportunities for young people annually. Growth, stronger school-to-work pathways and better conditions for self-enterprise all matter. But growth cannot be the only clock young people are expected to live by.
“A country cannot have 417 000 fewer young people in work than a year ago and respond with pauses, pilots and uncertain funding,” Magwaza says. “If the labour market is not creating enough work, then we have to use the interventions that can, and fund them with the certainty and ambition this crisis demands,” concludes Magwaza.
ENDS
Media enquiries:
Luvo Mnyobe, Youth Capital Communications Lead
luvo@youthcapital.co.za
061 420 8111 (WhatsApp)