South Africa continues to face high youth unemployment, but new data shows that opportunities for school leavers still exist
South Africa continues to face high youth unemployment, but new data shows that opportunities for school leavers still exist across several sectors of the economy.
IOL previously reported that South Africa’s official unemployment rate rose to 32.7% in the first quarter of 2026, up from 31.4% in the final quarter of 2025, according to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Stats SA.
The economy lost 345,000 jobs during the three months, reducing the number of employed people to 16.8 million. At the same time, the number of unemployed South Africans increased by 301,000 to 8.1 million.
However, according to a new report by Pnet, there are still clear entry points into the labour market for young people with a matric certificate, particularly in sales, administration, customer service and retail support roles.
