Factbox-Racial divide in South Africa’s economy By Reuters

By Nellie Peyton

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Thirty years after the end of apartheid, South Africa’s economy remains deeply divided by race, fueling political debate over the extent to which its landmark black economic empowerment law has worked.

Here are some facts about South Africa’s racial divide.

UNEMPLOYMENT

South Africa has struggled for years with low economic growth and high unemployment. The official unemployment rate was 33.5% in April-June this year.

During that time, the unemployment rate was 37.6 percent among black South Africans and 7.9 percent among white South Africans, according to the statistics agency. It was 23.3% among mixed-race South Africans.

The unemployment rate among black people has been consistently higher than the national average over the past decade and has risen by more than nine percentage points since 2014, Statistics South Africa said.

MANAGEMENT CONTROL

In the private sector, white people held 65.9 percent of senior management positions, while black people held 13.8 percent in 2022, according to the South African Employment Equity Commission.

South Africa’s population of 64 million is about 8 percent white, official figures show.

Statistics show that the percentage of black people increases as the job level goes down to senior, professional, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled.

At the level of unskilled labor, whites held 0.9% of private sector jobs and people of color 82.8% in 2022.

PROPERTY

Average black ownership of companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was almost 30% in 2022, according to the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Commission, which includes other minority groups such as mixed race and Asian people.

However, the report is based on a small sample of firms that submitted their information. One economist calculated that effective black ownership among listed companies was about 1%.

Board members at listed companies were about 47% black in 2022, the Commission said in its latest report, adding that this showed potential progress but that limited data meant it did not necessarily represent industry performance.

“No entity has been registered as 100% black-owned within the JSE listed companies,” it said.