ActionSA has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to review the continued suitability of ministers responsible for employment, trade, small business and infrastructure after South Africa shed 345,000 jobs in the first quarter of 2026.In a letter to Ramaphosa, ActionSA MP Alan Beesley said the latest quarterly labour force survey showed a deepening unemployment crisis and required urgent accountability from the government.Stats SA’s figures show the official unemployment rate increased from 31.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 32.7% in the first quarter of 2026. The number of employed people fell by 345,000 to 16.8-million, while the number of unemployed people increased by 301,000 to 8.1-million.The broader measure of unemployment, which includes discouraged work-seekers and other people in the potential labour force, increased to 43.7%. Stats SA said the gap between the official unemployment rate and the broader measure showed an “unmet need for employment” among the working-age population.Beesley said the figures showed the ministers responsible for enabling economic growth, investment and job creation were “presiding over the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs South Africans already had”.South Africans deserve a government that treats unemployment as the national emergency that it is.— Alan Beesley, ActionSA MPHe said ActionSA was particularly concerned about the rise in discouraged work-seekers, which the party said increased by 178,000 in one quarter to nearly 4-million people.“This reflects not merely unemployment, but a growing collapse in public confidence that meaningful economic opportunity exists at all,” Beesley said.The party said fewer than four in 10 working-age South Africans were employed, while 37.6% of people between the ages of 15 and 24 were not in employment, education or training.Beesley said this represented “a generational crisis” that threatened long-term economic stability and social cohesion.The unemployment figures could not be blamed only on global economic conditions and reflected: policy failure;economic stagnation;infrastructure collapse; and declining investor confidence.The party called on Ramaphosa to review the ministers of: employment and labour;trade, industry and competition;small business development; andpublic works and infrastructure.“These portfolios are central to fostering employment, investment, infrastructure delivery and economic growth, yet they continue to preside over worsening unemployment and economic decline,” Beesley said.The call comes two years after the formation of the government of national unity. ActionSA said South Africans had yet to see a coherent and urgent economic reform agenda capable of addressing unemployment.“South Africans deserve a government that treats unemployment as the national emergency that it is,” Beesley said.Stats SA said the largest job losses were recorded in community and social services, which shed 206,000 jobs, and construction, which lost 110,000 jobs. Manufacturing gained 38,000 jobs, mining added 32,000 and agriculture added 10,000.Business Day