- Unemployment up from 34% to 35%.
- Expanded Unemployment 43.8%
- We face deep-seated economic fragility and structural roadblocks, we need to Turbocharge our economy.
The DA in Limpopo is deeply concerned by the results of the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) which shows that Limpopo’s unemployment rate jumped by 0.6 percentage points, from 34.4% in Q1 to 35.0% in Q2, while South Africa as a whole saw a modest 0.3 percentage point increase in the official unemployment rate. This widening gap shows that whatever gains the national economy is making are not translating into improvements here in Limpopo.
In the first quarter of 2025, Limpopo 55 000 jobs.
The expanded unemployment rate in Limpopo, which includes discouraged jobseekers, remained unchanged at 43.8% indicating that people have neither re-entered the labour market nor been absorbed into employment. Nationally, however, the expanded rate declined slightly.
The fact is Limpopo is slipping further into a labour market malaise. While the national economy shows some improvement, our province is stuck, with unemployment rising faster and structural factors remaining unaddressed. This is not a temporary fluctuation; it is a warning signal of deep-seated economic fragility.
Our provincial economy depends heavily on agriculture, public sector employment, and informal trade, leaving it highly vulnerable when these sectors contract. A limited industrial base and a small formal private sector mean few alternative employment avenues.
We call on the provincial government to implement the DA’s Plan to Turbocharge the Economy, the time for talking is over, we need action to break the structural trap we are in.
We must urgently reform our governance, create functional and capacitated provincial and local government, cut wasteful expenditure, conduct spending reviews, and stop bailing out failing SOEs so that we can invest in infrastructure for current business operations and future investment.
We must end the fixation with mega state-driven projects such as the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ), which drain the fiscus yet remain moribund a decade later, and assist and create conditions for private sector-driven growth
We must reform municipal governance and rehabilitate basic service delivery infrastructure. It is, after all, in municipalities that investment and job creation occur.
Finally, we must fight our crime epidemic, which undermines service delivery, deters investment, and drives tourists away.
These damning QLFS results were sadly predictable. We know, as the DA what needs to be done to turbocharge our national and provincial economy, but we do not believe the ANC has either the will or the means to arrest our decline and the deepening misery our people face every day.