News in South Africa 26th February: 1. South Africans are poorer: An analysis of household finances shows that real salaries have deteriorated in 2023, with South Africans going into more financial distress in the final quarter of last year. This is according to Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop, who pointed to data from BankservAfrica that […]
News in South Africa 22nd February: 1. 2024 Budget speech in a nutshell: Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivered the 2024 National Budget Speech on Wednesday, 21 February. The budget touched on many points and topics, including the country’s current economic standing, growth estimates, the massive debt servicing costs, heightened sin tax proposals and the extension […]
News in South Africa 5th December: 1. Load shedding causing mass unemployment: Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said over 800,000 South Africans stand to lose their jobs due to load-shedding. The Minister recently spoke to Eskom employees at Medupi Power Station, which recently experienced several breakdowns that plunged the company into elevated load-shedding levels. “When Medupi coughs, […]
News in South Africa 17th October: 1. Food insecurity warning: The number of people unable to meet their minimum food consumption needs in South Africa is expected to marginally decline to just under one in two by 2025, according to the World Data Lab. The firm, which conducted research for Shoprite Holdings Ltd.’s food index, […]
News in South Africa 16th October: 1. Population grows – economy falls: The most notable figure in the 2022 census of SA’s population is confirmation that the population increased to above 62 million people, which is close to 20% higher than in the previous census 10 years ago. An immediate thought that comes to mind is that […]
News in South Africa 6th October: 1. Cost of living crisis: Economists have flagged South Africa’s fiscal crisis, a weakening rand, and the consequences of poor governance – painting a bleak future for the average South African as the cost of living crisis deteriorates. South African Reward Association member Kirk Kruger said South Africans are […]
News in South Africa 13th September: 1. Stage 6 load shedding: South African electricity outages remain at record levels despite the state power utility burning through vast quantities of diesel to bolster output. Eskom said Tuesday that Stage 6 power cuts, whereby 6,000 megawatts of capacity is removed from the grid to prevent a total […]
News in South Africa 12th September: 1. 200 000 public job cuts: President Cyril Ramaphosa has called an urgent but long overdue meeting with organised labour for Tuesday, as the possibility of a further wage freeze, job cuts, and more cuts to government services hang over the country. Federations were urgently advised of the meeting […]
News in South Africa 18th August: 1. Food price warning: Economists have warned that drier weather conditions and recent developments in international trade could lead to food price increases. According to Stats SA, annual inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages – a central reason for high headline inflation – dropped from 11.9% in May to […]
News in South Africa 16th August: 1. Unemployment concerns: Despite a slight drop in the unemployment rate economists still believe that far too many people in South Africa remain unemployed. On Tuesday, Statistics South Africa released the second Quarter Labour Force Survey for the period starting from 1 April to the end of June 2023. […]
