Racial prejudice: Black unemployment is higher than the national average. Among mixed-race South Africans, the figure was 23.3%. |Photo provided by: Reuters
Thirty years after the end of apartheid, South Africa’s economy remains deeply divided along racial lines, fueling political debate over how well the country’s flagship Black Economic Empowerment Act is working.
South Africa has long suffered from low economic growth and high unemployment. The official unemployment rate from April to June this year was 33.5%.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, the unemployment rate during this period was 37.6% for black South Africans and 7.9% for white South Africans. Among mixed-race South Africans, the figure was 23.3%.
According to Statistics South Africa, the black unemployment rate has been consistently higher than the national average for the past decade and has increased by more than 9 percentage points since 2014.
According to the South African Employment Equity Commission, white people will hold 65.9% of top management positions in the private sector in 2022, while black people will hold 13.8%. According to official data, about 8% of South Africa’s 64 million people are white.
Statistics show that the proportion of black people increases as the job level decreases from senior to professional to skilled to semi-skilled to unskilled.
At the unskilled labor level, whites accounted for 0.9% of private sector employment in 2022, while blacks accounted for 82.8%.
“No company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is 100% black-owned and registered,” the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Committee said.
Published – September 24, 2024 10:41 AM IST
