Household insights from the latest report

The SA economy was in deep trouble before Covid-19 and the lockdown. Ten years ago, just after the previous crisis, The Great Recession, the government projected that the economy would recover by 2012. It never happened - rather, an economic environment developed that prevented households and companies from flourishing.

Only 27.8% of the population has a job, only 13% earn enough to pay personal income tax and a tiny 0.5% earned a taxable income of more than R1 million a year. In contrast 19.2% are beneficiaries of social grants and 17.4% are unemployed.

Due to the slow growth in the size of the South African market, many SA companies decided to search for growth opportunities abroad, creating jobs in those countries. Simultaneously, SA started to import more goods and services (instead of producing ourselves), also creating jobs in other countries.