# Union federation COSATU says it commends the South African Municipal Workers’ Union for standing firm for workers in the Msunduzi Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal and Kannaland Local Municipality in the Western Cape. The union pushed back against exploitative practices of retaining personnel in contracts for years and the non-payment of outstanding overtime. COSATU’s spokesperson, Nonzuzo Dlamini, says the unethical behaviour of municipalities refusing to pay what is due to their staff should not be tolerated under any circumstances:
Stats SA reported that 36.4% of South Africans aged between 15 and 24 were not in employment, education or training. Image: Nicola Mawson | IOL
South Africa’s youth unemployment crisis worsened in the second quarter of 2026, with nearly two in three young people unable to find work, as economists warned that the country’s jobs crisis is increasingly becoming a skills crisis.
Statistics South Africa’s latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) showed the official unemployment rate rose to 33.6% in the second quarter, from 32.7% in the first three months of the year, as the number of unemployed people increased by 345,000 to 8.5 million. Employment declined by 16,000 over the quarter.
While the headline unemployment rate remains stubbornly high, the figures also highlight the growing premium attached to education. According to Investec economist Lara Hodes, youth unemployment is at a “critically elevated” 62.8%, up from 60.9% previously.
“The youth segment of the market remains the most disadvantaged when it comes to finding sustainable employment,” said Hodes.
Education is key
The QLFS also showed how education increasingly determines employment prospects. South Africans without a matric certificate faced an unemployment rate of 39.2%, while unemployment among graduates stood at just 12.4%.
Those with other tertiary qualifications also recorded unemployment rates well below the national average.
“Access to education remains essential, with the unemployment rate amongst those holding less than a matric certificate at an elevated 39.2%, while unemployment amongst graduates falls sharply to 12.4%,” said Hodes.
Hodes said South Africa had made meaningful progress in implementing reforms to support investment and economic growth, but further reform efforts were needed to generate sustained economic growth and meaningful job creation.
Constrained
PSG senior economist Johann Els said the latest figures pointed to a structural problem that had been decades in the making.
While around 900,000 jobs had been created over the past three-and-a-half years, he said employment growth continued to lag population growth, leaving more South Africans competing for too few opportunities.
“The prospects are improving but it’s not great because the labour market is significantly constrained,” Els said. “We haven’t got the skills we need. We’ve done basically nothing about the education system over the last 30 years to fix the skills deficit.”
Els said employers were increasingly reluctant to hire workers they regarded as unskilled, choosing instead to invest in machinery, equipment and technology.
The effect of education on employment prospects. Image: ChatGPT
Lagging peers
The challenge begins long before young people enter the labour market. The 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) found that South African Grade 4 learners achieved an average reading score of just 288, compared with the international centre point of 500.
This makes the country the lowest-performing participant. More than 80% of learners failed to reach even the study’s lowest international benchmark.
The 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) painted a similar picture. While South Africa’s Grade 9 mathematics score improved from 389 in 2019 to 397 in 2023, it remained below the TIMSS low international benchmark of 400.
Science performance declined from 370 to 362, leaving South Africa among the lowest-performing education systems participating in the international assessment.
North-West University academic Dr Paul Iwuanyanwu says South Africa needs a complete science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) ecosystem.
Overhaul
This, Iwuanyanwu said, would comprise of “stronger schools, better-trained teachers, capable artisans and technicians, properly funded researchers, modern infrastructure, and institutions able of converting knowledge into functioning public services”.
Iwuanyanwu added that “STEM education matters because South Africa cannot repair its infrastructure or grow its economy using skills it has failed to develop”.
The education challenge is also reflected in the number of young people disconnected from both learning and work.
Stats SA reported that 36.4% of South Africans aged between 15 and 24 were not in employment, education or training (NEET), limiting their opportunities to acquire the skills employers increasingly demand.
Labour court dismisses Popcru application, citing lack of jurisdiction or urgency
Major General Feroz Khan pictured in May. (ANTONIO MUCHAVE )
Suspended crime intelligence deputy head, Maj-Gen Feroz Khan, has lost a labour court application to stop the South African Police Service (SAPS) from taking disciplinary steps against him in his absence for allegedly bringing the police into disrepute.
The matter was heard in the labour court on August 25-26, with judge Connie Prinsloo this week striking the application off the roll “for lack of jurisdiction, alternatively for lack of urgency”.
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), which represented Khan, was ordered to pay the costs. Popcru is an affiliate of labour federation Cosatu and represents about 160,000 police, prison, and traffic officers countrywide.
Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said the union would comment later on Tuesday.
Khan was arrested in May with Gauteng Hawks boss Ebrahim Kadwa and Durban businessman Tariq Downes. The trio face charges including defeating or obstructing the course of justice and contraventions of the Precious Metals Act.
They were released on R20,000 bail by the Kempton Park magistrate’s court after making their first appearance in June. The trio is accused of unlawfully acquiring and possessing precious metals without the required licence.
Khan is a central figure in the Madlanga commission of inquiry into allegations of corruption and criminality in the police. Evidence presented thus far, including information obtained from forensic examination of electronic devices seized from Khan, has placed him at the centre of allegations involving corruption, illicit networks and the manipulation of SAPS procurement processes.
He is accused of leaking confidential police information and assisting associates in securing lucrative SAPS procurement contracts.
Khan was the target of an alleged assassination shortly before he was due to appear before the commission. He was hospitalised after allegedly being ambushed by gunmen in Houghton.
Khan was discharged in mid-July and has since been recuperating at an undisclosed location.
Although more than 1.08-million households, or 5.3% of all households in South Africa, were victims of housebreaking in 2025/26, making it the most common household crime during the period, less than half reported the incidents to police because they believed they would not do anything about them.
Statistics South Africa’s latest annual governance, public safety and justice survey — published on Tuesday — is yet another indictment of the police service, which has been under the spotlight over the past year after witness testimony at the Madlanga commission and before an ad hoc parliamentary committee implicated several officers in corrupt and criminal activity.
The Stats SA report points to residents often opting not to open cases after falling prey to housebreaking, theft and street robbery, among other crimes in 2025/26, though reporting rates were significantly higher for serious crimes such as murder, sexual offences and car theft.
“The majority of households indicated the reason they did not report housebreaking incidents to the police was that the police would not do anything about it,” statistician-general Risenga Maluleke told a media briefing at the launch of the study.
“In the year under review, 24.4% indicated that the police would not do anything about it. About 21.8%, which is a decrease from the previous year of 25.1%, indicated that the police could not do anything, or there was a lack of proof.”
Stats SA also surveyed individuals on their experiences of crime, finding that while theft of personal property was the most common offence in 2025/2026, with 1.4-million incidents, only 37% of the victims reported some or all incidences to the police.
You cannot fight crime when police stations lack working vehicles, rape kits, body armour, regular training or secure cells, or when detectives are overwhelmed by the number of cases they are tasked to investigate.
— Cosatu parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks
Reportings were, however, higher for hijacking at 77%, sexual offences at 67%, and other forms of assault at 55%.
“The other experiences of crime [reported] by individuals were below the 50% mark, those being street robbery, consumer fraud and theft of personal property,” Maluleke said.
The Stats SA report comes days after the latest quarterly police crime statistics on Friday showed that South Africa recorded 343 fewer murders in the first three months of the 2026/27 financial year, with the murder rate declining 5.9%.
Attempted murder cases, however, rose 8.7% to 6,958 during the quarter compared with the same period the previous year, while cases of assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm increased by 2.5% to 38,589, and common assault was up 2% to 42,491.
Carjacking declined by 18.2%, house robberies fell 17.6% and business robberies declined by 11.8% to 2,733.
On Tuesday, labour federation Cosatu said crime remains unacceptably high and called for additional support and resources for the SAPS, the National Prosecuting Authority, the judiciary and correctional services, in particular through hiring detectives, prosecutors, magistrates and other frontline personnel.
It also flagged the need for investment in skills and training, modern forensic laboratories and databases, state-of-the-art communications equipment, working vehicles and secure police stations, courts and prisons.
“You cannot fight crime when police stations lack working vehicles, rape kits, body armour, regular training or secure cells, or when detectives are overwhelmed by the number of cases they are tasked to investigate,” Cosatu parliamentary co-ordinator Matthew Parks said in a statement.
Zingiswa Losi is the president of Cosatu. Picture: File.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will soon be hosting its 15th national congress where workers from the clothing factories of Salt River to the mines of Thabazimbi, will reflect on the many dire challenges facing the working class and most importantly to adopt resolutions and campaigns the Federation must wage to defend workers’ hard-won rights and improve their working and living conditions.
Critics, usually ill-informed, are often quick to write off unions, yet fail to appreciate the many gains that workers enjoy today in South Africa are the product of generations of struggles led by the trade union movement, in particular Cosatu.
Cosatu and its affiliates’ roles are to defend workers at the workplace, to improve their working and living conditions, and because we are a progressive labour movement founded upon the principles of socialism, to drive society’s transformation.
A key component of the Congress is for Cosatu to report to its members on the strides it has achieved over the past four years, the challenges and the path ahead. Contrary to the ponderings of the army of armchair coaches, there is much Cosatu has achieved and much more still to be done.
We are proud that despite sluggish economic growth, our unions have been able to secure positive wage increases to protect workers’ wages from inflationary erosion and enable them to live a better life.
It was Cosatu that drove the Two Pot Pension Reforms, the single most important pension amendments in decades, that has released over R80 billion into the pockets of more than 4 million highly indebted workers whilst simultaneously boosting long-term savings with industry experts estimating that these reforms will double the number of workers able to retire in comfort.
We are now engaging Treasury on the next phase of pension reforms to ensure that workers, especially those who lose their jobs, are able to access greater relief and that we find ways of reducing the painful tax burden upon workers.
Over the past few years, Cosatu and its affiliates have intervened when strategic companies and sectors have been on the verge of collapse.
These interventions in partnership with affected businesses and farmers, and the African National Congress led administrations, have ranged from Edcon employing thousands of workers in the retail sector and many more along the clothing factories to more recently to stave off Tiger Brands’ previous planned closure of its canning operations in Ashton and currently to stop the intended shutdown of Premier Group’s canning factory in Tulbagh which would be an unprecedented economic catastrophe for that community.
Ahead of its 15th national congress, Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi outlines the federation’s claimed achievements on wages, pensions, jobs and social protection, while acknowledging South Africa’s continuing unemployment, poverty and inequality. Picture: File
Some critics lament that Cosatu is merely concerned with the immediate interests of its members yet it was the Federation who first proposed in 2019 and drove the R253 billion debt relief package for Eskom to enable it to focus on maintenance and infrastructure investments as the fastest way to end the loadshedding crisis that threatened to collapse the economy.
Today South Africa has not only ended loadshedding but soon will close the chapter on load reduction. Cosatu today is working closely with Eskom and industry to provide relief for smelters suffocated by the high levels of electricity tariffs, the next key step to unlocking badly needed economic growth.
It was Cosatu that drove with the support of the ANC in Parliament, the overhauling of the Public Investment Corporation Act to put in place critical transparency, accountability and investment guidelines to protect workers and pensioners’ hard earned money and to ensure that the largest investment fund in the continent, is utilised to grow the economy and create jobs, and not feather the nests of a corrupt few.
Cosatu with the active support of then Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, helped put in place the National Minimum Wage Act in 2019. Over the past few years, we have been able to ensure that it has increased the wages of 1 million domestic workers, 1 million farm workers and another 4 million workers in our hospitality, construction, security, transport and other sectors by 100%, 66% and 50% respectively. Our challenge now is to ramp up compliance by all employers.
The past term saw the conclusion of efforts to manage and overcome the global pandemic, COVID-19. Cosatu, working closely with government and business, helped oversee one of the world’s most successful health and safety and economic and social relief packages, saving millions of lives and livelihoods.
This social compact saw over R65 billion released from the Unemployment Insurance Fund to help 5.7 million workers in the private sector take care of their families. It saw the introduction of the SRD Grant that today helps 8 million destitute South Africans feed their families and lays the foundation for a Basic Income Grant.
The Federation has similarly worked closely with government and business to ensure that South Africa remains a member of the African Growth and Opportunities Act and that the Act itself is extended as it has helped create thousands of jobs across our manufacturing and agricultural sectors.
Similarly, we are engaging at Nedlac on the roll out of the African Continental Free Trade Area as this is key to turning Africa around and to protecting and nurturing local jobs and industries.
We continue to work closely with government to lay the foundations for the National Health Insurance as the most effective path towards achieving universal healthcare.
In 2022 proposals to gut our labour laws and set back workers’ hard-won rights were tabled at Nedlac. Cosatu acted and not only ensured that these were stopped but in fact that workers’ rights will be strengthened and extended to vulnerable workers from our film industry to uber drivers.
We are proud of the progressive role that Cosatu has played over its 40 years. Important victories have been won that have immeasurably improved the lives of millions. However, much more remains to be done, in particular to tackle our unacceptably high unemployment, inequality, poverty, crime and corruption levels.
Cosatu will continue to lead these struggles.
Zingiswa Losi is the president of Cosatu.
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Media Group.
