The normalisation of unemployment in South Africa

WALKING between my office buildings, I began to notice two distinct sets of faces, shaped less by difference than by time. In the early morning, there is purpose and resolve. Individuals move deliberately, some in small groups and others alone. Many carry a plastic bag containing a packed lunch and a bottle of water. Almost all hold a carefully arranged stack of documents in transparent sleeves. These documents are strikingly uniform. A curriculum vitae, a certified identity document, and a matric certificate.

As the year progresses, the bundle grows thicker. A diploma or degree certificate is added, representing years of investment, discipline, and expectation. By midday, the expressions change. Movement slows. Groups disperse. The confidence evident in the morning is replaced by visible fatigue. Doors have been closed. Security personnel have redirected access. Reception desks have provided procedural refusals or instructed applicants to apply online. The documents remain intact, but the optimism that animated the morning begins to erode.

This pattern repeats itself with notable regularity. January and February see a pronounced influx. May and June follow with similar intensity. October and November return the cycle once again. These are not sporadic moments of job seeking, but recurring periods of heightened unemployment visibility. They align closely with graduation cycles, contract terminations, and institutional intake myths.

Over time, they have become familiar features of the South African socio-economic landscape.  Statistical trends confirm what is evident in these observations. Over the past decade, South Africa’s official unemployment rate has risen steadily. In 2014, unemployment stood at just over 24%. By 2019, before the pandemic, it had increased to above 29%. In subsequent years, it exceeded 30% and has remained persistently high. Youth unemployment has followed an even steeper trajectory, consistently exceeding 50%.

Each year, new labour market entrants significantly outnumber available employment opportunities, transforming graduation periods into predictable unemployment cycles. These figures, while necessary, fail to capture the lived experience of unemployment. Job seeking is often framed as waiting, a period of inactivity between opportunities. In reality, it constitutes sustained and demanding labour. Families allocate scarce resources for photocopying and document certification. Individuals stand in queues for official stamps and signatures. Transport costs are carefully calculated. Meals are prepared in advance to minimise expenditure.

Time is invested daily, often repeatedly, in processes that offer little feedback and no assurance of outcome. Job seeking thus becomes unpaid labour, performed under conditions of uncertainty and constraint. What connects those walking between buildings is documentation. Hope has become bureaucratised. It is printed, copied, certified, and carefully organised. The curriculum vitae serves not only as a professional summary but also as a symbolic appeal to institutions that are primarily unable to respond. The instruction to leave a CV has become ritualistic rather than instrumental, signalling compliance without commitment.

Graduate unemployment intensifies this contradiction. Education continues to be promoted as the primary mechanism for economic participation and social mobility. However, degrees and diplomas increasingly circulate within a labour market unable to absorb them at scale. Qualifications accumulate, while opportunities stagnate. The moral authority of education remains intact, even as its economic promise weakens. Government employment initiatives have sought to address this disconnect. Expanded public works programmes, youth employment schemes, and short-term placements are frequently introduced as corrective measures. While these interventions provide temporary income and limited exposure for some participants, they rarely alter long-term employment trajectories.

Contracts conclude. Funding cycles lapse. Participants re-enter the labour market bearing updated CVs and the same structural constraints. Employment imperatives are announced with urgency, yet designed without durability. The challenge, therefore, is not a lack of policy intent but a lack of structural transformation. These initiatives manage unemployment rather than resolve it. They mitigate immediate hardship while leaving the underlying labour market dynamics unchanged.

Institutions have adjusted accordingly. Security personnel and administrative staff are not indifferent. They operate within systems that cannot absorb the scale of demand. Universities continue to produce large numbers of graduates. Employers emphasise experience thresholds that first-time job seekers cannot readily meet. Policymakers monitor quarterly indicators that seldom translate into tangible employment stability. What has become normalised is the repetition itself.

South Africa has learned to coexist with the seasonal visibility of unemployment. The recurring influx of job seekers is recognised, anticipated, and quietly accommodated. Hope is mobilised at predictable intervals, expended through repetitive processes, and renewed months later in similar form. Tomorrow morning, I will walk between my office buildings again. Depending on the month, I already know what I am likely to encounter. Newly printed CVs. Carefully certified documents. Individuals begin their day with resolve and belief. The question is no longer whether unemployment is increasing. The evidence is unequivocal. The more pressing question is why hope continues to be organised around systems that are structurally incapable of delivering what they promise.

Each stack of documents represents more than a qualification. It represents faith. Faith in effort. Faith in persistence. Faith that proximity, repetition, and compliance might eventually yield access. What is owed to those walking our corridors is not sympathy or reassurance. It is honesty. Honesty about the limits of the economy, the shortcomings of policy interventions, and the consequences of allowing unemployment to solidify into a recurring public ritual rather than confronting it as an urgent structural failure.

Professor Aradhana Ramnund-Mansingh is the manager, School of Business, Mancosa; empowerment coach for women and former HR executive.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. 

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