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Standard Bank Group
South Africa 11 June 2025

SA Provincial Chartbook

Shireen Darmalingam

  • This report compares the economies of SA’s nine provinces, unpacking the trends in regional growth rates and contributions to SA’s GDP. The latest official provincial GDP data is for 2023.
  • South Africa's overall economic growth has been relatively slow, with an average of 0.9% per year over the decade from 2013. There are significant disparities in GDP growth across the provinces, with some provinces lagging behind others. Gauteng has been the strongest performing province, with growth being driven by the finance, real estate, and business services, and transport and communication sectors. The Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal have also performed well over the decade. SA’s labour market faced persistent challenges over the past decade, with high unemployment rates and fluctuating employment (both formal and informal) patterns across the nine provinces.
  • The report highlights the variation in GDP growth across the nine provinces. Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, collectively accounting for close to two-thirds of national GDP, have driven growth in SA over the past decade.
  • While the 10-year averages of the main provinces’ growth rates are largely the same, there has been a recent trend of growth in the Western Cape outperforming. Gauteng, the Western Cape, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal recorded growth of 0.9% on average per annum over the past decade, in line with the national average of 0.9% per year over the decade. The Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga (collectively contributing 22.5% to GDP) recorded growth of 0.6% on average per year over the past decade.
  • The number of employed people increased by 2.388 million from 2013 to date. The beginning of the Covid pandemic saw the level of employment fall to a decade low of 14.148 million. Employment has since increased by 2.798 million. The North West (40.4%), Eastern Cape (39.3%) and Free State (37.9%) have the highest unemployment rates in the country, well above the national average of 32.9%, with the Western Cape (19.6%) and Northern Cape (29.5%) having the lowest unemployment rates. Significantly, the Western Cape is the only province to have seen a decline in the unemployment rate since 2013.
  • Formal employment grew by 11.6% since 2013, while informal employment is up by a massive 43.3% since 2013. Formal employment is the highest in Gauteng, at 33% (as a % of total formal employment in SA), from 36% a decade ago. The highest growth rates in formal employment since 2013 have been in Limpopo, the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. Informal employment in the Western Cape (accounting for 11% of total informal employment) is up by a staggering 69% since 2013. Informal employment grew in Gauteng (from 27%, to 29%).
 

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