Botswana’s latest labour force data suggests not a cyclical fluctuation, but a structural inflection point in the country’s development trajectory. Preliminary findings from the 2024/25 Botswana Multi Topic Household Survey show that unemployment among persons aged 15 and above has risen to 21 percent, up from 17.6 percent in 2015/16. According to Statistics Botswana, ‘the unemployment rate for persons aged 15 years and above increased from 17.6 percent in 2015/16 to 21.0 percent in 2024/25.’
At first glance, the increase appears modest, a 3.4 percentage point rise over a decade. Yet placed within broader demographic and labour force dynamics, the trend is more consequential.
Botswana’s total population expanded by 14.2 percent over the period, reaching 2.37 million. More significantly, the labour force grew by 21.7 percent, a rate outpacing both population growth and employment creation. While the employed population increased by 16.7 percent, from 689,528 to 804,663, this was insufficient to absorb new entrants.
As the report notes, ’employment creation has not fully matched the pace of labour force growth, resulting in a higher unemployment rate compared to 2015/16.’ The data therefore points to a labour market that is expanding quantitatively but struggling to adjust structurally.
A further complexity lies in the apparent decline in the number of officially unemployed individuals from 280,482 to 213,437. This reduction, however, must be interpreted cautiously. The brief acknowledges that ‘a possible explanation to the drop can [be] attributed to either a growing number of the employed (transition to employment) or increase in the discouraged job seekers, yielding a contraction in the labour force base.’
In other words, headline unemployment figures may obscure labour market withdrawal. The extended unemployment rate which includes discouraged job seekers fell from 32.5 percent to 27.3 percent. While this suggests some improvement in broader labour underutilisation, it also highlights the sensitivity of labour metrics to definitional boundaries.
The sharpest warning sign lies with young people. Youth unemployment, covering those aged 15 to 35, rose from 25.1 percent to 28.9 percent. Young women face the highest levels of joblessness, at 30.7 percent, compared with 27.2 percent for young men. At the same time, the youth labour force grew by 8.3 percent, meaning more young people are competing for limited opportunities.
There was some improvement in the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), which fell from 39.9 percent to 37.1 percent. But more than a third of young people remain disconnected from both work and skills development.
Taken together, the findings suggest that Botswana’s long-standing growth model historically anchored in capital-intensive sectors may be encountering absorption constraints in an increasingly youthful labour market. The policy challenge is no longer solely about aggregate employment creation, but about the composition, inclusivity and labour intensity of growth.
Overall, the report shows that while the country’s development success story remains intact, the labour market data signals that its next phase will require more than incremental adjustment.