South Africa's economic outlook worsens, but wage growth expectations rise
South Africans are now more pessimistic about economic growth, with financial analysts, business executives, trade union representatives, and households seeing gross domestic product materially lower than three months ago.
However, respondents see higher wages even though they anticipate a slow down in inflation. Salaries are now expected to increase by 4.9% this year and 5.1% in 2026, up from 4.5% and 4.8% respectively in the previous survey, according to the BER.
This is according to the Bureau of Economic Research's (BER) second quarter survey, which polled these three groups on behalf of the South African Reserve Bank. Respondents now expect the economy to grow by a mere 0.9% this year, compared to 1.2% previously.
For 2026, those polled anticipate gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 1.2%, down from the 1.4% forecast in the first quarter. South Africa's GDP gained 0.1% in the first quarter of the year, which beat economists' expectation of a decline.
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