{"id":21826,"date":"2025-09-17T01:25:52","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=21826"},"modified":"2025-09-17T01:25:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T01:25:52","slug":"south-africa-insight-rising-job-losses-threaten-fiscal-goals-insights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=21826","title":{"rendered":"South Africa Insight: Rising job losses threaten fiscal goals | Insights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<p><h2>Budget balance widens alongside the rise in the jobless rate<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>South Africa was already operating one of the largest social grant systems in the developing world, serving millions of children, elderly and disabled.<\/li>\n<li>The new grant, launched in 2020, extended support to working-age adults \u2013 the group hit hardest as lockdowns wiped out jobs. Meant as a temporary measure, the grant has been repeatedly extended as the labor market stays weak and the economy struggles.<\/li>\n<li>Unemployment pressures are set to intensify further. New US tariffs and rising competition from Asian imports are likely to hurt local manufacturers. South Africa faces the continent\u2019s highest levy \u2014 30% \u2014 which will hit its automotive and agriculture sectors particularly hard.<\/li>\n<li>Local carmakers, already squeezed by rising imports from Asia, have announced jobs cuts. A major steelmaker plans to close this year due to high costs, logistical bottlenecks, and import competition, eliminating more than 3,000 jobs.<\/li>\n<li>Weaker-than-expected growth will cut tax revenue, with tariff-hit sectors and a rising jobless rate adding to the shortfall. At the same time, spending on social grants is likely to rise as more of the unemployed qualify for support.<\/li>\n<li>As a result, the consolidated budget deficit will likely exceed the government\u2019s planned 4.8% of GDP for this year and 3.8% next year, delaying the stabilization of public debt \u2013 which stood at 76.9% of GDP in March \u2013 beyond 2026.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Budget balance widens alongside the rise in the jobless rate South Africa was already operating one of the largest social grant systems in the developing world, serving millions of children, elderly and disabled. The new grant, launched in 2020, extended support to working-age adults \u2013 the group hit hardest as lockdowns wiped out jobs. Meant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3130,13376,8136,8328,12239,779,9982,1999,122,773],"class_list":{"0":"post-21826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-fiscal","10":"tag-goals","11":"tag-insight","12":"tag-insights","13":"tag-job","14":"tag-losses","15":"tag-rising","16":"tag-south","17":"tag-threaten"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}