South Africa's National Treasury, working with the Human Sciences Research Council and the universities of the Witwatersrand and the Free State through the Spatial Economic Activity Data – South Africa (SEAD-SA) partnership, has published the Cities Economic Outlook 2026. The report presents new evidence on economic and labour-market shifts across South Africa’s eight metropolitan municipalities and argues that weaker metro performance could constrain national growth unless urban infrastructure, spatial integration and industrial upgrading are prioritised. Drawing on the Spatial Tax Panel, a longitudinal dataset built from anonymised administrative tax records, the Outlook finds metropolitan employment growth has faltered over the past decade, with only Cape Town and Tshwane bucking the trend. It reports stagnation in higher-value tradable sectors such as manufacturing in several cities alongside job growth concentrated in non-tradable and public service activities, rapid metro population expansion that intensifies infrastructure and service delivery pressures, spatially uneven exposure to risks and opportunities from the green transition, and an uneven recovery from COVID-19 in which metros absorbed most initial job losses and have lagged non-metro areas. The report also highlights severe youth job losses with little sign of improvement and adds analysis on economic complexity, spatial mismatch in Gauteng cities, deindustrialisation, urban wage geographies and post-pandemic resilience. SEAD-SA releases the Spatial Tax Panel indicators publicly in aggregated form via the National Treasury Secure Data Facility, and the report is available through the SEAD-SA platform.
National Treasury (South Africa) 2026-03-31
South Africa's National Treasury releases Cities Economic Outlook 2026 finding metro job growth has slowed and urging coordinated urban reform
The National Treasury (South Africa), with research partners under the Spatial Economic Activity Data – South Africa initiative, has published the Cities Economic Outlook 2026 on economic and labour-market shifts across eight metropolitan municipalities. Using anonymised tax-based Spatial Tax Panel data, it finds weak employment growth outside Cape Town and Tshwane, stagnation in higher-value tradable sectors, pressure from rapid population growth, uneven green transition and COVID-19 recovery impacts, and severe, persistent youth job losses. Aggregated Spatial Tax Panel indicators are publicly available via the National Treasury Secure Data Facility, with the report accessible through the SEAD-SA platform.