47.5% Shocker

By Andrew Whitfield MPL – DA Leader of the Official Opposition in the Eastern Cape Legislature:

The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey, released today, exposes the depth of the Eastern Cape’s economic crisis.

Official unemployment rose from 44.6% to 47.5% in the second quarter of 2026, the highest rate in the country. Year on year, the unemployment rate jumped eight percentage points from 39.5%, with the province shedding 116,000 jobs in the process.

The unemployment rate increased, even though the number of employed people grew by 13,000 compared with the first quarter, because the Eastern Cape labour force expanded by 160,000 people, from 2.405 million to 2.565 million.

The latest figures suggest that large numbers of Eastern Cape residents who were previously outside the active labour force began actively looking for work, but the economy simply could not absorb them.

Outside Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay, official unemployment has now reached 56.5%, while the broader LU3 measure stands at 63.2%.

The Eastern Cape does not have a shortage of people willing to work. It has a shortage of jobs, investment, and functioning local economies capable of creating opportunity.

These figures cannot be separated from the Eastern Cape’s continuing migration crisis.

People move where they believe they can find jobs, opportunity, and functioning communities. Nearly one million people left the Eastern Cape to other provinces over the past decade.

Turning this around requires more than employment programmes. It requires functioning local economies.

Working towns and cities attract investment. Investment allows businesses to expand. Expanding businesses create jobs. If we want to reverse unemployment and migration, we must start by getting Eastern Cape municipalities working for all.

That means reliable water and electricity, maintained roads and infrastructure, efficient planning systems, responsible financial management, and professional municipal administrations that make it easier, rather than harder, to invest and do business.

This is why the DA will request that the Eastern Cape Legislature hold a debate on a matter of public importance to confront the province’s migration and economic decline crisis, with the intent to develop a credible strategy to attract investment, retain skills, and create jobs.

If we are serious about turning the tide on unemployment and migration, getting Eastern Cape municipalities working for all must become an economic imperative, not simply a service-delivery aspiration.