South Africa’s construction industry is emerging as a rare bright spot in the nation’s fragile labor market, with Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Dean Macpherson stating the country is “becoming a construction site.”
His comments follow the release of Stats SA’s quarterly labor force survey (QLFS) for the second quarter of 2025, which showed the construction sector added 20,000 jobs quarter-on-quarter and 55,000 jobs year-on-year, a 4.6% increase. This makes it one of the top contributors to job creation in the period.
Despite these gains, the overall picture for the labor market is mixed. The official unemployment rate rose from 31.9% to 33.3% in the second quarter. Stats SA data revealed that while the number of employed people increased by 19,000 to 16.8 million, the number of unemployed people grew by a starker 140,000 to 8.4 million.
The report also highlighted a significant gender disparity within the construction sector. In the second quarter, men made up 88.6% of the workforce. The sector’s growth was almost entirely male-driven on a quarterly basis, with men gaining 23,000 jobs while women lost 4,000. Over the past year, men accounted for more than 90% of the new jobs created in the industry, adding 50,000 jobs compared to just 5,000 for women.
While the construction sector, alongside finance, transport, and community and social services, showed strong annual job growth, several other key industries faced significant declines. Private households (-54,000), trade (-45,000), and mining (-23,000) all reported substantial annual job losses, underscoring the uneven nature of the country’s economic recovery.