South African annual employment statistics by local municipality, 2014–2024

This dataset represents full-time employment (FTE) data aggregated at the local municipal level across South Africa. The data was sourced from the Spatial Economic Activity Data portal (Nell, A. Visagie, J. Spatial Tax Panel 2014-2024 [dataset]. Version 5.1. National Treasury - Cities Support Programme and Human Sciences Research Council [producer and distributor], 2025. https://spatialtaxdata.org.za/download-data-filter-form) , as the distribution of full-time employment by age group and municipality. Age categories spanned from early working years (15–20) to retirement years (65–120). For this dataset, age cohorts were summed to produce the total number of full-time employed individuals per municipality, providing insight into employment levels across South Africa’s local municipalities. The original dataset also included two categories — “Unknown Location - Head Office Anomaly” and “Missing Location Data” — which could not be linked to specific municipalities and were therefore excluded. The data was further transformed into a tidy format by restructuring years into columns rather than rows, allowing municipalities to be filterable and enabling easier analysis and visualisation.