South Africa’s job crisis deepens: What the latest unemployment spike really means

Thabo Shole-Mashao, in for 702's Clement Manyathela, speaks to Cosatu Parliamentary Coordinator Matthew Parks.

Listen below:

South Africa’s unemployment rate climbed sharply to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2025.

That's a full percentage point higher than the previous quarter, and far above what economists had predicted.

While some seasonal drop-off in employment is expected early in the year, this increase signals deeper structural challenges in the job market. 

Parks agrees the latest figures are disappointing.

RELATED: Unemployment rate climbs - almost 10% more young people without jobs than 10 years ago

"We recognise that this is for the first quarter of the year - so it follows the last quarter of last year, where there is frequently an increase in temporary jobs over the holiday season... so you find a bit of an anti-climax in the first quarter when many of those jobs go away."

- Matthew Parks, Parliamentary Coordinator - Cosatu

"We can't celebrate unemployment that increases, we can't celebrate 290,000 less jobs."

- Matthew Parks, Parliamentary Coordinator - Cosatu

Parks says it is now time to treat unemployment as South Africa's single biggest national crisis.

"We've got to treat it collectively as government, working with business and labour and ordinary society, the way we treated Covid-19. We've got to throw everything at it."

- Matthew Parks, Parliamentary Coordinator - Cosatu

"You can't live in a society where four out of 10 South Africans, and one in seven young people can't find work, that is a ticking time bomb... and it's going to explode one day if we don't deal with it like the national crisis that it is."

- Matthew Parks, Parliamentary Coordinator - Cosatu

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the discussion.