Kicking out migrants won’t create jobs

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Zuid-Afrika werd recentelijk weer opgeschrikt door een hevige opflakkering van xenofoob geweld, waarbij tientallen doden vielen. Burgerwachten, vigilantes en anti-immigratiebewegingen viseerden daarbij vooral Afrikaanse migranten en hun eigendommen. Honderden kleine winkeltjes werden geplunderd of in brand gestoken. De politie bleef vaak afzijdig of liet de xenofobe geweldenaars hun gang gaan. Het geweld concentreerde zich in de provincies Gauteng, West-Kaap en KwaZulu-Natal. Wat is er aan de hand? Een analyse door Khwezi Mabasa.

Het was bijzonder pijnlijk dat precies op 27 en 28 april 2026, de 32ste verjaardag van het officiële einde van de apartheid in 1994 met de eerste democratische verkiezingen, de demonstraties van het burgerinitiatief March and March een voorlopig hoogtepunt kenden.

Bij demonstraties tegen migranten, al dan niet mensen-zonder-papieren, in grote steden als Pretoria, Johannesburg, Kaapstad en Durban ging het er soms zeer gewelddadig aan toe en vielen ook minstens twee doden, migranten afkomstig uit Nigeria en Ethiopië.

Later in mei, zijn bij demonstaties ook Mozambikaanse migranten om het leven gekomen. Precies Mozambique betaalde als meest directe buurland van Zuid-Afrika een hoge prijs voor zijn volgehouden solidariteit in de strijd tegen het apartheidsregime. Honderden ANC-aanhangers, die door het apartheidsregime werden vervolgd, vonden een veilig onderkomen in de buurlanden.

De leiders van de actuele anti-immigrantenbeweging in Zuid-Afrika beweren graag dat zwarte Afrikaanse immigranten de hoofdverantwoordelijken zouden zijn voor de hoge werkloosheid, de toegenomen criminaliteit en de falende openbare diensten.

Geen enkele van deze populistische beweringen wordt echter door enig concreet bewijsmateriaal gestaafd. Integendeel. Zoals in zovele landen ter wereld doen migranten in Zuid-Afrika vaak de vuile jobs die niemand anders wil doen, worden ze niet zelden schandalig uitgebuit en houden ze sommige sectoren gewoonweg in leven. Fake news, dat hoe langer hoe meer sociale media overspoelt, doet echter de rest…

Het burgerinitiatief March and March heeft eigengereid 30 juni 2026 als deadline gesteld. Tegen die tijd zouden alle ‘illegale’ migranten Zuid-Afrika moeten hebben verlaten of het dreigt met grootschalig geweld. Onder meer Ghana, Nigeria, Malawi en Mozambique hebben al landgenoten uit Zuid-Afrika gerepatrieerd. Iedereen houdt zijn hart vast voor wat komen gaat in de koude winter aan de Kaap.

Jan Van Criekinge

Aanhangers van de anti-immigratiebeweging ‘March and March’ trekken door Bellville, een rijkere noordelijke voorstad van Kaapstad, eind mei 2026 (foto: Ihsaan Haffejee/GroundUp).
Aanhangers van de anti-immigratiebeweging ‘March and March’ trekken door Bellville, een rijkere noordelijke voorstad van Kaapstad, eind mei 2026 (foto: Ihsaan Haffejee/GroundUp).

Kicking out migrants won’t create jobs

South Africans commemorated two significant events in May: Africa Day and Workers’ Day. These moments normally evoke political reflection on the importance of African unity and workers’ solidarity in challenging racialized capitalism over decades.

Yet this year’s reflections were marred by Afrophobic and tribalist attacks on black African working-class migrants. The leaders and supporters of this movement argue that Black African migrants are primarily responsible for the country’s perennial unemployment, crime, and low-quality public service problems.

These claims seek to justify violence and discriminatory stereotypes loaded with colonial racist assumptions. Furthermore, these organizations have not provided any evidence to substantiate their claims, particularly regarding employment and labor absorption across various economic sectors.

There is consensus that the country’s socioeconomic inequality continues to disproportionately affect Black working-class individuals, households, and communities.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) household and labor force surveys point to racialized and gendered disparities in employment as well as household expenditure.

But it is entirely erroneous to attribute and reduce the structural socioeconomic challenges cited above to increased migration. What is more concerning is the essentialist, Afrophobic logic that underpins these claims, which narrows systemic economic problems to individual or group identity.

The unsubstantiated sweeping generalizations should be questioned on the following empirical and political grounds.

South Africa has a structural unemployment problem

First, South Africa has a structural unemployment problem that is not primarily caused by increased labor migration. The research evidence on the country’s persistent labor market inequalities and unemployment points to different core causes.

Sectors that have historically employed large sections of the black working class have declined since the late 1980s. Deindustrialization, trade liberalization, deregulated financial markets, and reduced state intervention all contributed to structural weaknesses in high labor-absorbing sectors such as manufacturing, textiles, and agro-food system value chains. This trend directly impacts on employment figures and needs to be reversed.

Several civil society organizations, research institutes, and the labor movement have proposed policy solutions to increase employment through various industrial and macroeconomic policies.

Een informele winkel in de township Masakhane in de buurt van Kaapstad. Vele migranten in Zuid-Afrika houden kleine winkeltjes of bars open (foto: Jan Van Criekinge, juli 2014).
Een informele winkel in de township Masakhane in de buurt van Kaapstad. Vele migranten in Zuid-Afrika houden kleine winkeltjes of bars open (foto: Jan Van Criekinge, juli 2014).

The nature of South Africa’s labor market

The second flaw in the claims about employment relates to the nature of South Africa’s labor market. Research indicates that the country has a multilayered labor market structure in which workers have differentiated wages, employment security, and industrial relations rights.

The workforce is divided into two main groups: a small group of workers with standard employment status and rights, and the majority who occupy precarious jobs with minimal labor protections.

This context makes it easier for employers to dismiss workers or exploit them through labor market flexibility. The job losses recorded in several sectors and communities—not migration—are related to these trends. Additionally, migrant workers constitute a small portion of the overall employed workforce.

Most surveys conducted by both state and non-state research organizations indicate that migrant workers constitute less than 10 percent of the overall labor force. The discussion needs to be further disaggregated into sector-specific trends so that citizens and policymakers can obtain a clear, evidence-based picture.

Reports from organizations such as the African Centre for Migration & Society and the Migrating for Work Research Consortium found that non-South African migrant employees typically hold precarious and low-paying jobs. These facts challenge the sweeping generalizations about employment articulated in the context of the recent violent attacks.

Not accountable for creating labor market super-exploitation

The third and final shortcoming in this shift towards heightened anti-migrant mobilization is its state-centrism. There are minimal efforts to hold private actors and businesses accountable for creating labor market super-exploitation.

Most of the frustration about exclusion from labor markets is directed toward black African migrants or state authorities. Yet there are cases where both large and small private businesses continue to hire migrant workers in exploitative labor conditions.

The state-centric emphasis in these movements overlooks this trend and redirects the core causes onto marginalized migrant workers and the government.

Most South Africans agree that breaking labor laws and regulations is fundamentally wrong. But the policy solutions to address this circumvention of labor law must be evidence-based and directed toward the core institutions causing the crisis.

More importantly, the country needs labor market and macroeconomic policy reforms that substantially increase employment. These alternative policy proposals are articulated in many formal policy submissions by the labor movement and civil society.

The main propositions include: strengthening labor rights implementation; protecting high labor-absorbing sectors; reducing trade liberalization; demand-led fiscal policy frameworks; and reducing concentrated market structures across the economy.

Khwezi Mabasa

Khwezi Mabasa volgt de economische en sociale ontwikkelingen in Zuid-Afrika voor de Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa (FES).

Dit artikel verscheen op zondag 14 juni 2026 op de Amerikaanse kritische Afrikawebsite ‘Africa is a Country’: https://africasacountry.com/2026/06/kicking-out-migrants-wont-create-jobs

Lees ook:

  • Xenophobia – South Africans Are Chasing Ghosts While The Real Culprits Are Laughing | een analyse door Thabo Mbeki, president van Zuid-Afrika van 1999 tot 2008, opvolger van Nelson Mandela https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXa_ZZtWj9I

Lees ook (inhoud juni 2026)

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