South Africa's youth unemployment rate fell slightly to 57.0% in the fourth quarter of 2025 from 58.5% in the prior quarter, but long-term joblessness continued to worsen and nearly 3.5 million young people remained outside employment, education or training, according to the SARB's March 2026 Quarterly Bulletin.
Long-term unemployment — those out of work for a year or more — climbed to 79.7% of total unemployment in Q4, up from 77.0% in Q3, approaching the all-time high of 80.0% recorded in Q4 2021. The composition of the unemployed skewed heavily toward new labour market entrants, who accounted for 42.3% of all jobless persons, followed by job losers and those who last worked five or more years ago, each at 25.6%.
The picture was mixed across age groups. While the 15–24 cohort saw modest improvement, unemployment among 25–34 year-olds moved in the opposite direction, rising from 38.4% to 39.2% over the same period.
The NEET share — young people not in employment, education or training — ticked up to 34.0% from 33.9%, representing 3.5 million out of 10.3 million young South Africans. That compares with a global NEET rate of 20.0% in 2025, itself above pre-pandemic norms and projected by the ILO to rise further to 20.2% in both 2026 and 2027.
Discouragement continued to grow. The number of people outside the labour force increased by 248,000 in Q4, driven largely by a 233,000 jump in discouraged job seekers. The broader LU3 measure — which combines official unemployment with the potential labour force — eased marginally to 42.1% from 42.4%, offering limited comfort against an otherwise deteriorating structural backdrop.
