The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in Gauteng welcomes the activation of approximately R1.5 billion in Labour Activation Programme (LAP) contracts by Minister Nomakhosazana Meth in Gauteng Province.
This significant investment by the Department of Employment and Labour demonstrates a firm commitment to tackling unemployment and expanding meaningful economic participation for working-class communities. The unlocking of over 30,000 training and work opportunities represents a decisive intervention aimed at bridging the gap between skills development and industrial demand.
As COSATU Gauteng, we strongly support initiatives that prioritise decent work, empower young people and the unemployed with accredited training, and stimulate sustainable job creation. The Labour Activation Programme has the potential to strengthen local industries, enhance productivity, and restore dignity to thousands of households across our province.
We particularly welcome the Department’s message: “Working for you.” Indeed, government programmes must always serve the people, especially workers and the unemployed who continue to bear the brunt of economic hardship.
COSATU Gauteng stands ready to work with the Department of Employment and Labour, organised business, and all social partners to ensure that this investment delivers quality training, transparent implementation, and real, sustainable employment outcomes.
Together, we must ensure that this programme not only creates jobs but builds a stronger, more inclusive Gauteng economy that truly works for all. For a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society.
Limpopo Guest House Rentals, SANDF Event Impact, Local Economy Limpopo
SANDF group has been in Venda since early January
Homeowners and guest house businesses in Thohoyandou and surrounding areas have cashed in over the past four weeks thanks to the South African National Defence Force Armed Forces Day parade events that took place in the rural Limpopo town.
Mpho Makhanu, who owns two houses in Thohoyandou but lives full-time in Polokwane, said he was approached by SANDF officials who told him they needed accommodation for their members as most bed and breakfasts and guest houses in the area were full.One of the properties is a double-storey house with five bedrooms and two bathrooms, situated in a quiet and serene part of Thohoyandou. It has a double garage and a swimming pool. Inside it has a spacious kitchen, dining and TV area and a working space.He hired a chef to cook for guests, at their request. “I had over 12 people spread between my two houses. I don’t recall the exact numbers because my wife handled the booking and payments. “We rented out rooms for R1,200 for a standard room, per person, including breakfast. We have had people staying in our place since January 11. While some paid in cash … for others we had to send an invoice to theto pay. This army event has been a good thing for many people in Thohoyandou, especially those with rooms in their yards they could rent out,” said Makhanu. A member of the SANDF, who asked not to be named, said some of his colleagues were staying in houses where they paid R1,000 per night excluding breakfast. Normally, January and February are considered a quieter period in tourism, as they follow the festive season. However, the Armed Forces Day activities brought renewed energy and opportunity to local businesses like ours.“I got to Thohoyandou around the 11th of January and we have been staying here ever since. I am part of the advance group, escorting a high-profile official from the SANDF.” Muravha Nelwamondo, the co-owner of Thavhani Boutique Hotel and Elephant Boutique Lodge in Manini village, said she appreciates the SANDF for recognising Limpopo, and specifically the Vhembe District for hosting the Armed Forces Day. She said the event significantly boosted the local economy and tourism industry. “Normally, January and February are considered a quieter period in tourism, as they follow the festive season. However, the Armed Forces Day activities brought renewed energy and opportunity to local businesses like ours,” said Nelwamondo. Her establishments hosted 23 members of the SANDF including senior officials. She said as a result of the financial impact of this event, she felt compelled to give back to the community., where we donated 20 school shoes to learners in need, two packs of sanitary pads for each grade 12 learner and one laptop for the school,” said Nelwamondo. She said the initiative was their way of ensuring the benefits of tourism extend to business and directly uplift the community. Though she could not reveal how much she made in the past four weeks, she said all rooms were charged at government standard rates. Mukhethwa Thari, who runs Zwizwo Guest House near Thavhani Mall, also benefited from this event. From the 18 rooms he rented to the SANDF, they made around R300,000 in four weeks. “This money will help me to renovate my business and expand where I can, which will create more jobs. I have a guest house I want to finish building in Mavhunda village, I will use some of the money for that,” said Thari.
Walmart will launch 21 new stores in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Western Cape, offering South Africans lower prices than those at Checkers and Pick n Pay.
The launch starts this weekend with its third store at the East Point Shopping Centre in Boksburg, Ekurhuleni, this weekend.
The new store followed Walmart’s entry into South Africa last year with successful launches in Clearwater and Fourways.
“Boksburg customers can confidently shop on their own schedule and trust that they will always get the lowest total cost for their trolley of products,” Walmart said.
This is in contrast to competitors like Checkers, Pick n Pay, and Spar, which focus heavily on short-term promotions to attract shoppers.
“Independently published total price comparisons confirming that Walmart has delivered a low-price advantage,” said Massmart’s André Steyn.
He highlighted that these comparisons were of a comparable trolley of everyday essentials, including bread, milk, eggs, rice, sunflower oil, and sugar.
He added that local Walmart clients appreciated the convenience of a large range of products under one roof.
Similar to Makro, Walmart offers an assortment of fresh food and groceries, along with a range of family and home entertainment items.
Walmart is also taking the fight to Checkers Sixty60, Pick n Pay Asap!, and Woolies Dash with its online shopping service.
Shoppers can download the African version of the Walmart shopping app to take advantage of the retailer’s 60-minute express delivery service.
99% of its first-time online customers expressed a firm intention to place repeat orders of fresh food, groceries, adult beverages, and small appliances.
This has prompted Walmart to extend its 60-minute online delivery service from a 5km radius to 8km from its stores.
This is only the start. Walmart is expanding its national presence to deliver affordable, high-quality merchandise to South African consumers.
This national growth builds on the strong momentum from successful launches in Clearwater and Fourways.
The company said customers have enthusiastically embraced Walmart’s Every Day Low Price philosophy.
“With a further 21 stores proposed in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, Walmart is firmly establishing a broader national presence,” it said.
A major international retail player is turning heads in South Africa — and local shoppers are about to benefit. Walmart, the US-based retail giant, is accelerating its expansion in South Africa with plans to open 21 new stores across Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
This growth builds on Walmart’s earlier successful launches in Clearwater and Fourways and follows the recent opening of its third store in Boksburg. The chain promises customers everyday low prices on groceries, fresh food, household items and entertainment products — positioning itself as a competitive alternative to established players like Checkers, Pick n Pay and Spar, which often rely on promotional deals to attract shoppers.
What’s especially noteworthy is Walmart’s push into rapid online delivery through its local app, offering 60-minute express service now extended to an 8 km radius from its stores. With a focus on affordability and convenience, Walmart is charting an ambitious course to carve out a meaningful share of South Africa’s retail market — providing more choice for consumers and intensifying competition with long-standing grocery chains.
The Recycling Association of South Africa (RASA) has welcomed the Competition Commission’s proactive and decisive intervention in the scrap metal sector.
RASA points out that, on February 13, the commission conducted search-and-seizure operations at the premises of several major scrap metal buying companies as part of its ongoing investigation into alleged coordinated price-fixing of shredded and processed scrap metal.
This action follows a third-party complaint lodged in 2023 and a further complaint initiated by the Competition Commissioner in February.
RASA says it commends the commission for its swift enforcement in this priority industrial intermediary sector.
The association posits that dismantling any alleged buyer-side cartel will help eliminate artificial barriers to entry, foster fair competition and create opportunities for small businesses, informal collectors, waste pickers and firms owned by historically disadvantaged persons to participate meaningfully in the market.
“However, we must condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the alleged conduct of these powerful scrap buyers. This is not mere commercial rivalry – it is outrageous, predatory collusion that has deliberately and systematically suppressed domestic scrap prices for years.
“It is the economic equivalent of a cartel secretly fixing the price of bread: except that instead of robbing ordinary South Africans of their daily staple, these buyers have been robbing hundreds of thousands of the poorest of the poor – informal metal recyclers and waste pickers – of their only source of income and survival.
“These are not abstract statistics. These are mothers, fathers and young people who walk the streets and scour landfills every day to feed their families,” the association says.
“The alleged price-fixing has crushed their earnings, deepened poverty, forced business closures, and driven many into desperation. The harm is real, severe and unforgivable.”
RASA says these raids provide compelling evidence that the market distortions highlighted in its letter to Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau, dated November 20, remain a serious and ongoing concern.
The association explains that the letter urged the immediate suspension of the price preference system (PPS), an independent forensic investigation into its “manipulation since inception”, and the removal of the export tax to restore equilibrium.
RASA says the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition’s (dtic’s) earlier recommendation to suspend the PPS pending review, combined with this latest enforcement step, demonstrates government’s commitment to evidence-based reform and cross-institutional cooperation.
While enforcement against anticompetitive conduct is crucial, RASA says sustained harm to recyclers, exporters, and the broader value chain – including suppressed domestic prices, business sustainability risks, and devastating job losses among the most vulnerable – persists under the current policy framework.
The association says the raids reinforce that complementary policy adjustments are urgently needed to level the playing field across the entire scrap metal ecosystem.
RASA has, therefore, renewed its call to the Minister, the dtic and the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac) to immediately suspend the operation of the PPS for ferrous and nonferrous waste and scrap metal; to institute an independent forensic investigation into the operation and system manipulation of the PPS since its inception; and to remove the export tax to restore market balance and supply-chain functionality.
“The metal recycling sector – which supports more employment than downstream processing alone – stands ready to collaborate constructively with the Competition Commission, dtic and Itac to build a transparent, competitive and sustainable market,” says RASA.
According to StatsSA, a growing pool of underemployed workers and millions more in the potential labour force who remain on the margins of economic activity.
Image: File
South Africa’s official unemployment rate declined by 0.5 percentage points to 31.4% in the three months to December 2025, signalling modest relief in a labour market long under strain.
This pushed the official unemployment rate down from 31.9% in the third quarter, marking the second consecutive quarterly decline from the 33.2% recorded in the second quarter of the year.
Yet beneath the headline improvement lies a deeper challenge: a growing pool of underemployed workers and millions more in the potential labour force who remain on the margins of economic activity.
According to the latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey released by Statistics South Africa on Tuesday, the working-age population (15–64 years) reached 42.1 million in the fourth quarter. Of these, 24.9 million were in the labour force — either employed or actively seeking work — while 17.1 million were outside it.
Employment increased by 44,000 to 17.1 million during the quarter, while the number of unemployed people fell sharply by 172,000 to 7.8 million.
However, a closer look reveals that the country’s labour market distress extends far beyond those officially counted as unemployed.
One of the most significant pressure points is time-related underemployment.
Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke said about 700,000 employed South Africans reported that they were working fewer hours than they desired and were available to work more. These individuals are technically employed, yet their labour is underutilised.
“These are people who are saying that they are not working enough hours if they could work a little bit more to deploy their availability to the labor force,” Maluleke said.
“These are people who are saying they wish they could work more time and the time they are working doesn’t give them enough space to utilize their labor availability.”
When combined with the 7.8 million unemployed, the expanded measure of unemployment and time-related underemployment rises to 34.3%.
Even more telling is the size of the potential labour force: those who are not officially unemployed but are marginally attached to the job market.
“But when we come to outside the labor force, we have what we call the potential labor force, which talks to your discouraged work seekers, those that are not seeking but available, and those that are seeking but not available,” Maluleke said.
This group totalled 4.6 million people in the fourth quarter, an increase of 82,000 from the previous quarter.
Maluleke said within this category are 3.7 million discouraged workseekers — individuals who want employment but have stopped actively looking, often due to repeated rejection or lack of opportunities.
He said a further 855,000 people were available for work but not seeking employment for various reasons, while 42,000 were seeking work but temporarily unavailable, such as students waiting to complete exams.
“Students may sometimes look for employment while they are writing exams. They started looking for employment while they were waiting to write exams. So they knew that they would not be available readily, but once they finished their exams, they would come and be available for employment,” Maluleke said.
When the unemployed are combined with the entire potential labour force, the broader unemployment measure climbs to 42.1%, underscoring the scale of exclusion from productive activity.
The Motor Industry Staff Association (MISA) said employment statistics consistently show an increase toward the end of the year due to temporary work, only to fall again in the first quarter.
Martlé Keyter, MISA CEO, said this pattern does not reflect structural progress.
“The number of discouraged work seekers has increased, meaning more South Africans have stopped looking for work altogether. The youth unemployment rate increased by 0.1 of a percentage point to 43.8% in the fourth quarter of 2025,” Keyter said.
“MISA sees this as a clear sign that the country remains far from resolving its unemployment crisis.”
The most comprehensive measure, labour underutilisation, paints an even starker picture.
This composite indicator includes the unemployed, the potential labour force, and those in time-related underemployment.
Together, Maluleke said, these groups amount to 44.5% of the extended labour force, meaning nearly half of South Africa’s available human capital is either idle or insufficiently engaged.
“When we look at the labor force participation rate as well as the absorption rate, the labor force participation rate is a proportion of those of working age who are either employed or unemployed whereas the absorption rate is the proportion of those in working age that are employed,” Maluleke said.
Encouragingly, all four key indicators — the official unemployment rate, unemployment plus time-related underemployment, unemployment plus potential labour force, and overall labour underutilisation — have been trending downward since the second quarter of 2025.
“The wider the gap between the two lines means that we still face a challenge. Of course, we can see that the gap is starting to move slightly lower than it was previously. It had gone as far as 20 percentage points. Now it’s sitting at 18.7 percentage points difference with the labor force participation rate sitting at 59.3% and the absorption rate sitting at 40.6%.”
Maluleke suggested this signals that the country may be gradually “turning the corner” after a difficult start to the year, when 291,000 jobs were lost in the first quarter.
While the gradual decline in unemployment offers cautious optimism, the expansion of the potential labour force and the scale of underemployment suggest that the recovery remains fragile.
“Much more needs to be done by the government, in particular to further capacitate the frontline public and municipal services that the working class and businesses depend upon, to inject additional stimulus needed to unlock economic growth including expediting the infrastructure investment programme, and to ramp up public employment programmes and relief for the poor and the unemployed,” said Cosatu.
