South Africa’s official unemployment rate dropped by 1.4 percentage points, from 33.5% in Q2 to 32.1% in Q3 2024. According to the Quarterly Labor Force Survey (QLFS) from the national statistics agency, Stats SA, the number of unemployed individuals decreased by 373,000, bringing the total down to 8 million.

Among young people, the number of unemployed fell by 171,000, reaching 4.8 million still more than half of the total unemployed population. Stats SA noted that the youth unemployment rate declined, from 46.6% in Q2 to 45.5% in Q3 2024.