Employment and Labour Minister Nomakhosazana Meth says her department is intensifying efforts to tackle unemployment through a combination of employment programmes, skills development initiatives and labour market reforms aimed at improving opportunities for South Africans.

Speaking during a June 1 Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) Deep Dive media briefing, she said South Africa continued to face a "missing jobs crisis", despite signs of economic stabilisation and improving investor confidence.

“On one hand, we are seeing real signs of economic stabilisation, our electricity supply is improving and investor confidence is renewing.

“On the other hand, despite periods of economic growth over the past two decades, South Africa has failed to generate sufficient employment opportunities for young people. By 2024, about one-million people entered the labour market, yet only around 40% secured stable employment, while the remainder either survived through precarious work or joined the growing ranks of the long-term unemployed,” Meth noted.

She added that while the official unemployment rate stood at 32.7% in the first quarter of this year, the country had recorded two consecutive quarters of improvement in the second half of 2025, with the unemployment rate having fallen to 31.4% in the fourth quarter – the lowest level since the third quarter of 2020.

Meth said unemployment should not be viewed solely as an economic issue but also as a social justice challenge that undermines dignity, threatens social stability and compromises the future prospects of millions of young South Africans.

She pointed out that the Department of Employment and Labour (DEL) had declared 2026 the "year of putting young South Africans to work" and was directing significant resources towards labour market interventions. The department has been allocated R4.5-billion for the 2026/27 financial year, while the Unemployment Insurance Fund and Compensation Fund have budgets of R41-billion and R28-billion, respectively.

Meth said the DEL's revamped Labour Activation Programme would focus on three pillars, namely workplace-integrated learning and placement, demand-led skills training and support for small-scale enterprises. The programme aims to create 200 000 opportunities during the current financial year, including placements for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) students, graduate interns, trainee engineers, accountants, health inspectors and other young professionals who require workplace experience to complete their qualifications.

She said the department was placing greater emphasis on training aligned to labour market demands, particularly around digital skills. As part of this effort, the DEL planned to train 10 000 young people in digital skills and also provide support to a further 10 000 programme participants to obtain driver's licences to remove barriers to employment.

Meth also called on employers to make greater use of the Employment Services South Africa database, which contains information on more than seven-million work seekers, including about four-million young people.

Meanwhile, the Minister also noted that labour market reforms under the National Labour Migration Policy and the Employment Services Amendment Bill were intended to balance the protection of employment opportunities for South Africans with the economy's demand for critical and scarce skills.

Responding to a question from Engineering News & Mining Weekly on the role of the private sector and the message for businesses in the hospitality and construction sectors that rely on foreign workers, Employment and Labour Deputy Minister Jomo Sibiya urged businesses to prioritise employing South Africans and to comply fully with labour and immigration laws.

He warned that labour inspections and enforcement operations would be intensified and that the DEL was moving towards tougher penalties, including criminal charges for employers who repeatedly break the law in this regard.

"The era of impunity is changing. Our labour laws must be respected. One of the labour law reforms that we are [implementing] is that our fines are going to be harsher given that there [are some] employers who even budget for noncompliance,” he said.

He argued that some employers preferred to hire undocumented foreign workers given that they could be paid below the national minimum wage and were more vulnerable to exploitation.

Sibiya said the department was working with organised stakeholders in the hospitality sector to improve compliance and understanding of labour laws. While progress was being made, individually owned restaurants remained a particular area of concern.

He added that the DEL had also intensified inspections in the construction industry, citing recent operations in the Western Cape in which dozens of undocumented foreign nationals were arrested at construction sites.

Meth said the department would continue to combine advocacy and compliance efforts but warned that employers who ignored opportunities to comply voluntarily would face tougher enforcement measures as government expanded its labour inspectorate and implemented its labour market reform agenda.