Big jump in South Africans looking to emigrate.
Almighty, O my friend — but it is too much for my strength — I sink under the weight of the splendour of these visions!
Escalations in unemployment rates, stagnant economic growth, and diplomatic and political uncertainty – fueled by the worst loading shedding on record – have resulted in many South Africans looking to leave the country, most of whom are eying the United Kingdom.
Since the start of 2022, load shedding has been the catalyst of the deterioration of South Africa’s economy, as input costs of economic production in the country have become significantly more expensive.
As a result, business sectors – including food producers, retailers, and manufacturers – have forked out billions of rands to stave off rolling outages.
This, in turn, has meant that job opportunities have become scarce, food inflation has risen to a 14-year high, and disposable income has been eroded. At the same time, pay increases are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living in South Africa.
According to the SARB’s latest stability review, looking over the past couple of years, load shedding quintupled (4.7x times) between 2021 and 2022 when measured in Gigawatt hours, and the Gigawatt hours load shed in 2022 was 11,679 GWh in total.