Demographics to help reduce SA unemployment: Chart

Reducing South Africa’s record high unemployment will be a key objective of the incoming government led by President Cyril Ramaphosa, and recent changes in the demographic should put some wind in his sails, according to Bloomberg Economics.

The older workforce’s expansion is slowing and the number of 15-24 year-olds fell last year for the first time since at least 1950, probably reflecting the increase in infant mortality in 1995-2005 before the AIDS epidemic was contained.

These two factors give Ramaphosa a temporary window to get more young South Africans into work.