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In 2024, South Africa recorded its lowest-ever number of mining fatalities: 42 deaths. That’s a significant improvement on previous decades.
During the 1980s, when mining contributed about 20% to South Africa’s economy, more than 700 deaths were recorded by the industry a year.
At that time, about 80% of the fatalities were in the gold sector, according to statistics from the department of mineral resources and energy. By 2024, only 26% of mining fatalities were linked to gold mining.
Mining’s contribution to the country’s GDP has fallen to around 6% and gold is no longer the country’s biggest employer in the mining sector. In fact, the sharp drop in gold mining fatalities mirrors the decrease in the number of people employed by the sector. In 1988, gold mining employed just over 536,000 people. By 2000, that number had more than halved to 217,000; by 2023, it had fallen to 94,000.