Three and a half million. That is the number of South Africans who have stopped looking for work, according to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey released this week.
The figure increased by 126,000 between the third quarter of 2023 and the third quarter of 2024.
It is a number that should have been front-of-mind for the ten leaders of the Government of National Unity (GNU) when they gathered for their retreat at the Cradle of Humankind two weeks ago.
“We cannot achieve all our reconstruction and development goals in a single year. We have neither the capacity nor the resources. So, we have to choose what to put first… These priorities must be the nation’s priorities,” Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said.
It should also have weighed heavily on Godongwana as he presented the 28th Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS), a tradition introduced by former finance minister Trevor Manuel in 1997.
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