A recent survey by a group called African Response found that among people who classified themselves as unemployed and looking for work, 41% were earning up to R15,000 a month through income-generating activities such as baking, building and hairdressing -- the 'side hustle'.

I cannot tell you how many times I have read these words: "South Africa's unemployment rate, the highest in the world, ..." blah, blah blah. It's worrying, irritating, demeaning and, I'm willing to bet, totally wrong. Of course, that doesn't mean SA does not have an unemployment problem, but it's very different from the one generally described.

You need to bear three things in mind. The first is how the history of SA's employment and unemployment has unfolded. Second, the incentives for those cited in the official surveys on the subject, and third, the incentive systems for the people who cite SA's unemployment levels.

Let's start with the data itself, as presented.

This is a little dated -- it comes from an article penned for the Human Sciences Research Council in 2022, The State of Employment and Unemployment in South Africa, by one of the country's most engaged and informed economists, Miriam Altman.

As everybody who follows this data knows, SA has two measures: a strict definition, which, as is normal in international practice, excludes people who have given up looking for work. We also have a broad definition that tries to take into account the general working-age population. Both...