The City of Tshwane has emerged as Gauteng’s leading engine of job creation, recording 71,000 new jobs from Q2 2024 to Q2 2025. This accounts for 85% of all new jobs created in the province during that period and contributed to a significant drop in the city’s unemployment rate. Remarkably, 57,000 of these jobs were created in the past quarter alone, highlighting the city’s accelerating economic momentum while the national unemployment rate under the expanded definition remained at 42.9%.
Officials attribute this strong performance to the implementation of the Tshwane Economic Revitalisation Strategy (TERS), adopted earlier this year by the Multiparty Coalition Government.
TERS is a five-year blueprint aimed at transforming the city’s economy through industrial expansion, investment attraction, and improved ease of doing business. Over the next five years, the strategy targets R17 billion in new assets, 3.9% economic growth by 2029, and an additional R41.5 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) to the local economy.
Executive Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya said, “This performance follows the adoption of the Tshwane Economic Revitalisation Strategy earlier this year, which prioritises growth and job creation. With this unified approach, we expect economic conditions to strengthen further in the months and years ahead.”
With this labour market performance, Tshwane has positioned itself not only as the engine of Gauteng’s economy but also as a potential blueprint for urban economic revival across South Africa.
