Today, in Alexandra, we launched the DA’s new jobs billboard with a simple message:
JOBS GROW TWICE AS FAST WHERE THE DA GOVERNS.
South Africa’s greatest challenge is to get our economy growing and our people working.
Economic growth and jobs are the foundation of an inclusive society. A job gives people independence, dignity and the opportunity to build a better future for themselves and their families.
And when it comes to creating jobs, the evidence is clear: DA governments deliver.
Stats SA’s analysis of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey shows that, during the latest period for which accurate comparable figures were available in 2024/25, employment in the Western Cape grew by 2.6%, compared with just 0.9% in the rest of South Africa.
The latest figures strengthen the case even further.
In the second quarter of this year, the Western Cape added 91,000 jobs. Over the same period, employment across South Africa fell by 68,000 jobs.
Every one of those lost jobs represents a family with less security and fewer opportunities. In a country with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, this is a national tragedy.
But there is another comparison that is even more telling.
Over the past five years – broadly corresponding with the current term of local government that began in 2021 and ends in November – Cape Town alone created nearly half of all the net new jobs created across South Africa’s seven metros.
The job growth figures speak for themselves:
• Cape Town: 418,000
• Tshwane: 102,000
• Ekurhuleni: 96,000
• Johannesburg: 65,000
• Buffalo City: 50,000
• Nelson Mandela Bay: 14,000
• Mangaung: – 48,000 (minus 48,000)
Cape Town created more than four times as many jobs as the next-best performing metro.
And it created more than six times as many jobs as Johannesburg.
This is not an accident. It is what happens when a government understands that its job is to create the conditions in which businesses can invest, entrepreneurs can succeed and employers can create jobs.
• Good government matters.
• Reliable infrastructure matters.
• Sound financial management matters.
• Making it easier, rather than harder, to do business matters.
The record is clear: where the DA governs, economies grow faster and more people find work.
Johannesburg has enormous economic potential. It should be the jobs engine of South Africa. Instead, years of political instability, collapsing infrastructure and dysfunctional government have held it back.
That can change.
On election day in November, Joburg residents will have a clear choice.
They can continue with the decline. Or they can elect a DA government that will get Johannesburg working again.
If we want Joburg to create jobs again, we have to get Joburg working again.