SOUTH AFRICA’S leading trade union federations the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) and the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) have all called for the African National Congress-led coalition government to take action over unemployment.
Data from Statistics South Africa showed that over 50 per cent of young South Africans aged 15 to 34 were unemployed at the end of the first quarter of 2025 (January to April).
Youth are facing an increasingly hostile job market, with new labour force data revealing that nearly half of young people remain unemployed.
Fedusa says the first quarter of 2025 marks a worsening trend in youth joblessness, with formal employment shrinking and a growing number of young people entering adulthood without ever holding a job.
According to Stats SA, young people aged 15 to 34 account for 50.2 per cent of the nation’s working-age population, translating to about 20.9 million people.
The 15-24 age group – approximately 10.3 million strong – faces the steepest barriers to workforce entry, with unemployment rates soaring far above their older counterparts.
The challenges confronting young South Africans are not new; however, the current trends appear increasingly grim.
In the first quarter of 2015, the youth unemployment rate stood at 36.9 per cent.
Fast forward a decade, and that figure has alarmingly risen to 46.1 per cent in Q1 2025 – a staggering 9.2 percentage point increase signalling a bleak future for millions of young individuals.
- More than 8,000 healthcare workers in South Africa lost their jobs following the withdrawal of United States (US) funding for HIV/Aids programmes, South Africa’s Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi confirmed.
The job losses come as a direct result of US President Donald Trump’s January 2025 announcement to withdraw the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar) funding from South Africa’s HIV/Aids and TB programmes.
Despite the significant job losses, the health minister claimed that the vast majority of the HIV/Aids workforce remains intact and operational across affected districts.
Speaking last Thursday, Motsoaledi stated: ‘In these 27 districts, there were 271 606 people who are working on the HIV/Aids programmes every day.
‘15 539 of these were funded by Pepfar, of which, yes, we can confirm today, unfortunately, 8,061 are out of their jobs.
‘The remaining 7,478 people are still employed because they are funded through Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, at least until September this year.
‘So they are still on the job and doing their work as they were normally doing.’
The minister challenged what he characterised as a misguided perception about where HIV/Aids work truly takes place.
Motsoaledi said: ‘We wish to confirm today that the fight against HIV/Aids and TB is in our villages, in our communities and townships and even on the streets of our country. And that is where our focus is, has been, and as it should be.’
Despite the recent funding cuts from Pepfar, Motsoaledi claimed that South Africa still maintains a substantial HIV/Aids workforce, with 263 354 healthcare workers continuing to deliver critical services in previously Pepfar-funded districts.
He said those previously supported under Pepfar have been absorbed into public clinics and continue to receive uninterrupted treatment.
Meanwhile, on Friday the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) said in a statement that it is concerned about a funding crisis in the Free State province in the country.
The union stated: ‘SAMWU expresses deep concern and growing outrage over the continued deterioration of local government in the Free State, as confirmed by the Auditor-General’s latest report on Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality and Masilonyana Local Municipality.
‘These findings, though alarming, only confirm what SAMWU has consistently raised that our municipalities are in crisis due to systemic governance failures, entrenched financial mismanagement, widespread corruption, the recycling of senior managers, the employment of incompetent personnel, and a disturbing lack of consequence management.
‘These patterns have become entrenched across Free State municipalities, resulting in administrative paralysis, declining service delivery, and a complete erosion of public trust.
‘What is equally troubling is the role played by both the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA FS) and Provincial Treasury, whose repeated and ineffective interventions have done little to halt the decay.
‘Their inaction and failure to enforce accountability mechanisms have made them complicit in the collapse of municipalities across the province.
‘Municipal workers have been made scapegoats in a system that continues to reward the corrupt and punish the honest.
‘Service delivery has collapsed, infrastructure is failing, and the workforce is demoralised, all while politically connected individuals evade scrutiny and accountability.
‘SAMWU demands:
‘1. Independent forensic investigations into financial misconduct and governance failures in Mangaung and Masilonyana.
‘2. A full skills and capacity audit, and professionalisation of senior appointments across all municipalities.
‘3. A national inquiry into the failure of oversight by COGTA and National Treasury, and the ineffectiveness of provincial interventions.
‘4. An immediate end to the recycling and protection of incompetent officials, regardless of political affiliations.
‘5. A commitment to merit-based cadre deployment, guided by transparent criteria and public accountability.’
- South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet United States President Donald Trump at the White House this week in an attempt to ‘reset’ ties between the two countries.
The visit comes after the US welcomed dozens of white Afrikaners as refugees last week, following widely discredited allegations made by Trump that ‘genocide’ is being committed against white farmers in the majority-Black country.
Trump has criticised Ramaphosa’s government on multiple fronts.
In February, he issued an executive order cutting all US funding to South Africa, citing disapproval of its land reform policy and its genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against US ally Israel.
Trump’s order also offered to take in and resettle people from the minority Afrikaner community, whom he alleges are ‘being persecuted and killed because of their race’ – claims that have been disproven by experts and South Africa’s government.
Pretoria maintains there is no evidence of persecution of white people in the country.
According to data, white people, who make up seven per cent of South Africa’s population, own more than 70 per cent of the land and occupy most top management positions in the country.
The US is South Africa’s second-largest bilateral trading partner after China.
