There are positive prospects for farm jobs in SA

Loading player...
South Africa's agriculture is on its recovery path, supported by favourable rainfall and progress in controlling the spread of animal diseases, amongst other contributing factors. The previous 2023-24 production season was challenging, characterised by the mid-summer drought and animal diseases that added immense pressure to the sector.

The jobs data for the fourth quarter of 2024 illustrate the difficulty the sector experienced, although much milder than we anticipated. For example, primary agriculture employment fell by 1% from the third quarter to 924k jobs in the last quarter of 2024. The field crops, game and hunting, and forestry are the subsectors that registered notable losses.

However, from an annual perspective, the employment was roughly unchanged from the last quarter of 2023. Positively, the primary agricultural employment of 924k people is well above the long-term jobs of 799k.

Given the resilience of recent quarters' job performance, it is possible that we may see a recovery in employment conditions in 2025, assuming that there aren't pressing trade-related challenges that will weigh on the sector's profitability in the near term. The mild increase in the minimum wage this year, while challenging for some commodities and adding to already higher input cost pressures, may also not be a major hindrance.

Listen to the podcast for more insights.

Richard Humphries and Sam Mkokeli produce this podcast.
23 Feb English South Africa Investing · Food

Other recent episodes

SA summer crop harvest set to recover robustly in 2024-25

South Africa's agriculture is recovering after a challenging mid-summer drought that led to significant crop losses in the 2023-24 season. The Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) 's data released at the end of March 2025 paints an encouraging picture of this new season's summer crop production prospects. For example, the 2024-25…
29 Mar 12 min

There is rising optimism in South Africa’s agriculture

We have a challenging year like this one where there remains discomfort about the Expropriation Act in some sections of South Africa and rising geopolitical tensions; we were pleasantly surprised to see rising optimism in South Africa’s agriculture. The Agbiz/IDC Agribusiness Confidence Index (ACI) – a sentiment indicator in South…
24 Mar 11 min

South Africa’s agricultural exports reached a record level in 2024

South Africa's agriculture exports reached a new record of US$13,7 billion in 2024, up 3% from the previous year. This reflects both an increase in the volume of agricultural exports and higher prices of some products. The top exported products by value include citrus, grapes, maize, apples and pears, wine,…
7 Mar 13 min

Encouraging crop production prospects for SA in the 2024-25 season

We have been saying for some time that this will likely be a recovery year for South Africa’s agriculture following a harsh mid-summer drought in the 2023-24 season that weighed on grains and oilseeds harvest. The first production estimates for 2024-25 summer grains and oilseeds point to the possibility of…
1 Mar 13 min