South Africa's Factories Keep Shedding Workers, and the Numbers Tell a Bigger Story

South Africa's formal job market took another hit in the second quarter of 2026, and manufacturing absorbed most of the damage. According to Statistics South Africa's Quarterly Employment Statistics survey, released Tuesday, formal non-agricultural employment fell by 14,000, or 0.1 percent, dropping from 10.439 million in March to 10.425 million in June. On the surface that looks like a modest dip. Underneath it, manufacturing alone shed 20,000 jobs, a 1.6 percent contraction that made it the single worst-performing sector in the economy.