Agriculture, Economic Development and Tourism
The Western Cape’s official unemployment rate declined from 21,1% in quarter 2 of 2025 to 19,7% in quarter 3 of 2025 largely due to a quarterly employment increase of 70 000 jobs:
- (a) What specific interventions or programmes directly contributed to these gains and (b) to what extent are these gains sustainable in the face of volatile sectors such as agriculture;
- in the light of the recent Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) of Statistics SA that shows that the province continues to reflect high levels of individuals not economically active (NEA), what targeted strategies does his Department have in place to reduce the persistently large outside-the-labour-force cohort?
1(a) The Growth for Jobs (G4J) Strategy and its implementation plan supports the outcome of creating an enabling economic environment for job creation. Consequently, job gains attributable to specific interventions are not currently available. However, as previously stated, the G4J Strategy includes several high-priority interventions related to job creation, as well as reducing the cohort of individuals outside of the labour market. Some of these interventions are listed below.
- International Investment Promotion Missions: A key constraint to the creation of jobs is relatively muted economic growth at the global, national, and local levels. Promoting investment can unlock expansions that are essential to spurring economic and, therefore, job growth, thereby safeguarding existing jobs and enabling new employment opportunities. Three international missions were conducted to promote foreign investment in priority sectors across key markets including China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan.
- Launch of the UNDP’s Timbuktoo Creative Tech Hub in Cape Town: The launch of the UNDP’s Timbuktoo Creative Tech Hub in Cape Town marks a major milestone in positioning the city as a leading hub for creative technology, broadening employment opportunities. This initiative is supported by strong institutional backing, underscored by the DEDAT–UNDP MOU presented at Cabinet on 29 October 2025.
- Digital Skills Training Expansion: The programme has reached critical mass across the province, a key step in preparing communities for participation in the 4IR economy. Rural communities are showing keen interest to learn and adopt digital skills. This presents a major opportunity to expand the digital footprint in the rural districts through partnerships and investment, ensuring rural communities are included and have the benefit to participate in the growing connected digital economy, which offers job potential.
- Employability and Entrepreneurship Education: Given that SMMEs and new enterprises are key drivers of job creation, interventions to stimulate entrepreneurship, enhance SMME participation in value chains, and self-employment are central to broadening employment opportunities, particularly in sectors where formal job growth is constrained.
- Work and skills: The Department’s work placement programme is a significant contributor to improving youth employability. It enables young people to gain practical experience in companies for a set period, with stipends partly sponsored by the Department, thereby easing their transition into longer-term employment.
1(b) The provincial quarterly employment trends, as reflected in Figure 1 below, show volatility and the sustainability of gains are uncertain. However, the general trend in employment has been positive.
Figure 1: Western Cape Employment trends by quarter, 2023Q3 to 2025Q3
Source: Statistics South Africa, 2025
(2) As outlined in 1(a), the Growth for Jobs Strategy addresses binding constraints to create an enabling environment for job creation, which in turn creates a context to reduce the group of people outside of the labour force.
