For more than a year now, South Africans have been betrayed by a coalition government that has failed to produce a single credible plan to address the country’s lack of growth and deepening unemployment crisis.
Economic growth has remained below 1% since the formation of the GNU, with today’s results confirming a meagre 0.8% growth for the second quarter of 2025. These numbers are a damning indictment of a government unwilling or unable to work together to deliver solutions for South Africans. The consequence is that every day more South Africans go home without work, forced to close their businesses, and go to bed hungry.
The government has refused to confront its own industrial policy failures. As a result, South Africa is facing a jobs bloodbath in the manufacturing sector. ArcelorMittal South Africa is winding down its Long Steel operations, directly affecting 3,500 workers in Newcastle and Vereeniging, and threatening over 100,000 downstream jobs. In the automotive sector, nearly 500 Ford employees across Pretoria and Gqeberha face retrenchment, while Goodyear’s closure of its 78-year-old tyre plant in Kariega will cost around 900 direct jobs and thousands more in the supply chain. Over the past two years alone, 12 companies in the automotive sector have closed, with more than 4,000 jobs lost. These are not just numbers – they are families plunged into insecurity and inequality because of government failures. High electricity costs, loadshedding, inefficient ports, and collapsing rail and road infrastructure are strangling South African industries and the workers who depend on them.
While the legal economy is throttled, illicit trade thrives. The GNU limps along at less than 1% growth while illicit markets are expanding at multiple-percentage-point rates: illicit alcohol volumes have grown by around 55% since 2017 and illicit cigarettes now account for roughly 60% of the market. SARS loses an estimated R18 billion to illicit cigarettes annually, while losses from illicit alcohol are pegged at around R16.5 billion each year. These criminal markets are expanding because government is not addressing illicit trade with the urgency it demands, costing the fiscus tens of billions that could have been used to fight unemployment and rebuild public services.
It is also worth noting that South Africa’s official growth outlook has deteriorated sharply this year. When Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana first tabled the 2025 Budget in February, National Treasury projected GDP growth of 1.9% for the year. Annual growth now stands at 0.6%, underscoring how quickly confidence is collapsing under this government. Statements by President Ramaphosa supporting Zimbabwe’s catastrophic land reform further erode confidence in our already fragile economy.
ActionSA calls on all parties in the GNU – the ANC, DA, IFP, PA, FF Plus, PAC, UDM, Al Jama-ah, GOOD, and Rise Mzansi – to unite on at least this issue if they cannot unite on others: fix the economy with pragmatic solutions and help ordinary South Africans find and keep work, so that every citizen can have the dignity of earning a living, supporting their families, and building a future in a country that works.
South African Jobseekers Betrayed by GNU as Growth Continues to Dwindle
For more than a year now, South Africans have been betrayed by a coalition government that has failed to produce a single credible plan to address the country’s lack of growth and deepening unemployment crisis.
Economic growth has remained below 1% since the formation of the GNU, with today’s results confirming a meagre 0.8% growth for the second quarter of 2025. These numbers are a damning indictment of a government unwilling or unable to work together to deliver solutions for South Africans. The consequence is that every day more South Africans go home without work, forced to close their businesses, and go to bed hungry.
The government has refused to confront its own industrial policy failures. As a result, South Africa is facing a jobs bloodbath in the manufacturing sector. ArcelorMittal South Africa is winding down its Long Steel operations, directly affecting 3,500 workers in Newcastle and Vereeniging, and threatening over 100,000 downstream jobs. In the automotive sector, nearly 500 Ford employees across Pretoria and Gqeberha face retrenchment, while Goodyear’s closure of its 78-year-old tyre plant in Kariega will cost around 900 direct jobs and thousands more in the supply chain. Over the past two years alone, 12 companies in the automotive sector have closed, with more than 4,000 jobs lost. These are not just numbers – they are families plunged into insecurity and inequality because of government failures. High electricity costs, loadshedding, inefficient ports, and collapsing rail and road infrastructure are strangling South African industries and the workers who depend on them.
While the legal economy is throttled, illicit trade thrives. The GNU limps along at less than 1% growth while illicit markets are expanding at multiple-percentage-point rates: illicit alcohol volumes have grown by around 55% since 2017 and illicit cigarettes now account for roughly 60% of the market. SARS loses an estimated R18 billion to illicit cigarettes annually, while losses from illicit alcohol are pegged at around R16.5 billion each year. These criminal markets are expanding because government is not addressing illicit trade with the urgency it demands, costing the fiscus tens of billions that could have been used to fight unemployment and rebuild public services.
It is also worth noting that South Africa’s official growth outlook has deteriorated sharply this year. When Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana first tabled the 2025 Budget in February, National Treasury projected GDP growth of 1.9% for the year. Annual growth now stands at 0.6%, underscoring how quickly confidence is collapsing under this government. Statements by President Ramaphosa supporting Zimbabwe’s catastrophic land reform further erode confidence in our already fragile economy.
ActionSA calls on all parties in the GNU – the ANC, DA, IFP, PA, FF Plus, PAC, UDM, Al Jama-ah, GOOD, and Rise Mzansi – to unite on at least this issue if they cannot unite on others: fix the economy with pragmatic solutions and help ordinary South Africans find and keep work, so that every citizen can have the dignity of earning a living, supporting their families, and building a future in a country that works.