Category: 3. Business

Job opportunities didn’t shrink as expected in October, but hiring continued to stall and layoffs increased in a month when the US government was shut down and hundreds of thousands of federal workers were furloughed, according to new data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There were an estimated 7.67 million US jobs available at the end of October, a slight increase from 7.66 million in September and 7.23 million in August (which was last available data prior to the federal shutdown), according to the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

Still, despite the very slight pickup in posted jobs, Tuesday’s report showed further weakening across the US labor market: Hiring activity slipped, layoffs moved higher and fewer people quit their jobs.

The BLS’ JOLTS report is a closely watched indicator of turnover activity, an important dynamism needed for a healthy labor market.

Tuesday’s data, however, comes with some added caveats as well as some added significance.

The October JOLTS report is the latest in a line of federal economic data affected by the federal shutdown. The report, which was originally slated for release last week, includes data for September, which had not been released until now.

The October data also was negatively impacted by the statistical agency’s inability to collect, process, analyze and disseminate economic data during the shutdown, which lasted from October 1 through November 12.

Still, it’s the first labor market release for October from the BLS. As such, it’s the most up-to-date official look at the job market for Federal Reserve policymakers, who are currently meeting to consider their next move on rates. An announcement is due at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday.

This story is developing and will be updated.

WASHINGTON — TrustPoint, a five-year-old startup building a low-Earth-orbit navigation network as an alternative or complement to GPS, says it is on track to soft launch C-band PNT services in 2027. The schedule depends on continued on-orbit demonstrations and receiver integration over the next two years, but the company says early tests and government interest are strong enough to support the target.

CEO and co-founder Patrick Shannon told SpaceNews that TrustPoint expects to draw on both military and commercial funding to accelerate deployment of a constellation that could eventually reach 300 satellites. The company bills itself as a complementary PNT provider to global navigation satellite systems such as GPS and Galileo, with differentiation rooted in its business model, orbital architecture and signal design.

Shannon said TrustPoint’s early development has been financed through private seed investments and government SpaceWERX contracts to validate ground infrastructure and its encrypted C-band payload. Those efforts have supported tests now underway using three satellites in orbit. Even at this stage, he said, the company is getting a “strong demand signal from the U.S. government.”

Defense agencies in the United States and abroad are looking for alternatives as jamming incidents continue to expose weaknesses in legacy GPS signals, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Shannon said. He described TrustPoint’s approach as “throwing out the rule book” in order to meet modern security and performance needs.

A central choice is to broadcast navigation signals solely in C-band, which runs roughly from 4 to 8 GHz, a higher frequency than L-band’s range of 1 to 2 GHz, a spectrum traditionally used by GPS and other GNSS operators. C-band signals can carry more data but demand more precise antennas. 

From a security perspective, Shannon said adversaries are well-versed in jamming and spoofing L-band signals. Operating in C-band could complicate hostile efforts tuned to legacy frequencies.

Goal to build 300 satellites

TrustPoint, based in Herndon, Virginia, builds its payloads in-house and plans to announce a U.S. manufacturing partner for its cubesat-class satellites. Shannon estimates the full system will reach about 300 spacecraft, although “you can do quite a bit with as few as 60 or 80.” 

A service reliable enough for military use could be available in 2027, he said, with a complete buildout by 2029. The full constellation would be needed for the most challenging applications, including street-level urban environments.

By 2027, “we will have enough satellites on orbit to provide some augmentation capability,” Shannon said. As more satellites come online, customers would gain access to receivers built by a network of partners designing hardware for the TrustPoint signal.

“We expect there to be two sources of capital to build out the system,” said Shannon. “The first source is private money. I think it’s safe to say commercial companies, backed by private capital, have shown to be very potent in the defense space for their speed and how effective they are at innovating in today’s environment.” That will be paired with “some substantial government support,” he said. 

While the U.S. military is central, “there’s interest globally,” he added. Governments across “top tier allies” are evaluating funding paths and technical requirements aligned with U.S. concerns about PNT resilience.

“We’ve seen advanced Western weapons fail in Eastern Ukraine because of GPS denial. And everyone’s looking for a solution around those problems,” Shannon said. 

Competitive PNT market

A direct competitor to TrustPoint is Xona Space Systems, which is developing a LEO-based PNT constellation called Pulsar. The company launched a demonstration satellite called Huggin in 2022 and its first production-class spacecraft in June 2025. Xona recently said it has shifted its primary focus to L-band signals and tabled its C-band plans for the time being. The decision was driven by practical engineering challenges and market compatibility considerations.

In a blog post, the company said it “learned with Huginn that the C-band signals proved much more challenging for manufacturers to integrate into existing user equipment than we anticipated” and that the signals “were also shown to offer fewer benefits to jamming resistance than initially expected.” 

Another emerging player, oneNav, is pursuing a next-generation GNSS receiver built around modern L5-band signals. Speaking in October at the MilSat conference in California, oneNav co-founder and CEO Stephen Poizner described Xona and TrustPoint as “really interesting startups” working to build “a system that’s equivalent to GPS, effectively, but just with LEOs.” 

Lower orbits, he said, bring stronger signals and better in-building penetration, with the caveat that “it’s going to require a lot of capital.”

Shannon insists that C-band is the right bet. “I think we need to move away from L-band, use more C-band or other frequencies as needed,” he said, noting that some European and Asian firms are exploring similar approaches. Customer feedback supports the strategy, he said. “We get a lot of traction because we’re not in L-bands.”

TrustPoint is also designing a GPS-independent ground architecture, with up to 100 stations providing contact with LEO satellites. Under SpaceWERX contracts, the company is developing a ground control network that does not rely on GPS for timing or orbit determination. Ground transceivers will both monitor the space segment and send ranging signals to satellites, creating a navigation system for LEO constellations.

The company sees potential demand from companies developing space-based interceptor prototypes for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile-defense program. “Space-based interceptors need to know what time it is, and they need to navigate,” Shannon said, noting that TrustPoint’s ground architecture could be adapted for interceptor constellations.

He added that interest spans both ground-to-space and space-to-ground navigation. Operators facing interference over conflict zones have approached the company because “terrestrial jamming sources affect LEO satellites.” Shannon said commercial satellite operators with assets over the Middle East and Eastern Ukraine have reported GPS disruption degrading spacecraft performance. “They’re aware that we’re building our network, and they’ve shown interest in tapping into that network.”

Related

LAWRENCE — In the U.S. public company audit market, regulators often assume that the absence of competition may lead to lower quality audits. However, a new article reveals competition is often overrated.

“We don’t find any evidence that a lack of competition is problematic. It turns out that auditors who appear to be operating in less competitive markets are more efficient and more effective,” said Will Ciconte, assistant professor of finance at the University of Kansas.

His working paper, titled “Profit persistence in the U.S. audit market,” investigates the relation between audit competition, quality and labor hours. Using proprietary data on auditor realization rates, the findings suggest that lower competition may reflect differentiation and that auditors use market power to deliver high audit quality.

The paper has been accepted to the Journal of Accounting Research.

“More providers should mean more fierce competition, where the provider should then try to differentiate based on their quality, and that should drive quality up and ensure prices stay at a fair price. Unfortunately, that ignores a few things unique about the audit market,” said Ciconte, who co-wrote the article with Andrew Kitto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Their study focuses on profit persistence (i.e., profits are “sticky” over time). They find certain audit offices have abnormal profits and there does not seem to be enough competitive pressure to drive down those profits over time. This provides evidence supporting concerns expressed by the audit regulator that the audit market lacks competition.

“We interpret the evidence as suggesting auditors with persistent profits are just providing better audits,” he said.

For the main analysis, Ciconte and Kitto measure competition using regressions of abnormal profitability in the current year on abnormal profitability in the prior year. (Abnormal profitability refers to the difference between the profitability for a given audit engagement compared to all engagements in the same year.)

Ciconte said, “We use this measure to explore whether higher profit persistence, which we use as a measure for low competition, is related to auditor effort and quality. We test this by regressing auditor hours, financial statement restatements, PCAOB inspection findings and discretionary accruals on our competition measure.”

Most larger companies rely on one of the Big Four firms — Deloitte, PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), EY (Ernst & Young) and KPMG — for their accounting and auditing. But that comes with its own set of baggage.

“For many of these companies, they can’t get an auditor that’s outside of the Big Four because there’s a need to invest in technology and knowledge and skills to serve the client,” Ciconte said.

“There’s this concern, ‘We only have these four firms that can serve this pool of clients. They don’t have an incentive to do a good job.’ We say, ‘Let’s see what competition looks like inside these markets. And then if we are detecting that there appears to be less competition, what are the implications for stakeholders?’”

Given that Ciconte found a lack of competition wasn’t problematic, then wouldn’t the audit quality be the same if a company were to switch to any of the other Big Four?

“Because these auditors are able to develop skill and expertise which they can then exploit, this creates a barrier so another firm can’t just come in and say, ‘Hey, you should come with us.’ Because switching off that auditor will be costly to the clients. The clients are willing to stick with them because they figured out a way to develop their processes, to get the right people in place to do good work and to get to a quality answer that is not replicable by a competitor,” he said.

The Delaware native started at KU this fall. He considers his expertise a “weird hybrid” of audit research and tax research.

Ciconte said, “I know from my talks with rank-and-file partners in major firms, they’re always monitoring these concerns. They understand what’s going on in the regulatory environment, and so they’re concerned about potential changes. Our study suggests any changes should be done very cautiously. It’s not good to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Washington, DC: An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team led by Delia Velculescu visited South Africa on December 1-8 to hold meetings with the economic authorities and other counterparts from the public and private sectors for the 2025 Article IV annual consultation. Discussions focused on policies to ensure macroeconomic stability and the structural reforms needed to durably lift potential growth, create jobs, and reduce poverty and inequality.

Context, Macroeconomic Outlook, and Risks

The South African economy has proven resilient to renewed global turbulence this year. Faced with greater protectionism, tariffs, and heightened policy uncertainty, the economy has shown resilience, owing to its abundant mineral wealth, independent institutions, credible inflation-targeting framework, flexible exchange-rate regime, and deep domestic capital markets. Financial-market indicators have improved, in part reflecting important domestic policy developments, such as the shift to a lower inflation target and exit from the FATF grey list, which, together with the recent Medium-Term Budget Statement’s reaffirmation of the government’s commitment to debt stabilization, led to an upgrade of South Africa’s credit rating. Nonetheless, persistent impediments—including product- and labor-market rigidities, spatial disparities, governance weaknesses, inadequate infrastructure, and elevated public debt—constrain the economy’s ability to rebound strongly from shocks, create needed jobs, and achieve its true growth potential.

Activity is expected to improve gradually. Following two quarters of strong activity, growth is projected to reach 1.3 and 1.4 percent in 2025-26, driven by continued robust private consumption. While exports remain hampered by tariffs and continued global trade policy uncertainty, strong commodity prices are supporting export receipts in the near term. Ongoing electricity and logistics reforms are expected to boost investment over the medium run, with growth projected to reach 1.8 percent by the end of the decade. In view of the move to a new lower inflation target, inflation is projected to average 3.3 and 3.6 percent in 2025 and 2026, before settling to 3 percent by end-2027 and beyond.

Risks remain tilted to the downside. Weaker-than-expected global activity—in the context of heightened geopolitical tensions, escalating trade measures, and prolonged global policy uncertainty—could dampen exports and increase commodity-price volatility. An abrupt global financial market correction and tighter financial conditions could lead to exchange-rate and capital-flow volatility and higher sovereign bond yields. On the domestic side, higher costs of disinflation may impact activity in the near term, while a slower pace of structural-reform implementation may exacerbate supply-side constraints and weigh on medium-term growth. On the upside, more ambitious domestic reforms, combined with a de-escalation of tariffs and improved global demand, could help boost confidence and support investment and growth.

Policies in Support of Macroeconomic Stability and Inclusive Growth

Bolstering resilience in a more shock-prone world and pivoting toward higher standards of living for all requires coherent and well-coordinated policies and reforms to safeguard fiscal sustainability, secure low and stable inflation, ensure financial stability, and address entrenched bottlenecks to growth.

Fiscal Policy

The mission welcomes the authorities’ commitment to reduce fiscal deficits and debt. The November 2025 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement reaffirms the commitment to stabilize and reduce debt over time by achieving a primary surplus of 1.5 percent of GDP in FY26 and 2.3 percent by FY28. The authorities aim to reach these targets through higher revenues and lower spending, while safeguarding public investment and social spending. Under the IMF baseline, however, in the absence of additional well-specified fiscal reforms, revenues are projected to be somewhat less buoyant and public spending to decline more gradually than the authorities forecast. As a result, the primary surplus is expected to increase more slowly and be insufficient to stabilize public debt over the medium run.

A credible, growth-friendly, and politically and socially feasible adjustment is needed to stabilize and reduce public debt, while safeguarding critical spending. With debt high and rising and growth below potential, policymakers face the difficult task of balancing debt-sustainability considerations against the need to safeguard the recovery. Spending needs are also substantial, given high unemployment and poverty rates, weak education and health outcomes, and deteriorating infrastructure. In this context, a well-calibrated fiscal consolidation that accounts for the economic and social realities and needs yet can deliver more credibly on debt-sustainability objectives is critical.

The mission supports the authorities’ FY26 primary surplus target and recommends more ambitious medium-term targets to support debt sustainability. To reach a primary surplus of 1.5 percent of GDP next year, as the authorities aim, a fiscal adjustment of around ¾ percent of GDP will be needed relative to staff’s baseline. Locking in savings brought by favorable near-term revenue dynamics, together with additional reforms, can support this effort. In the medium run, the mission considers that a primary surplus target of 3 percent of GDP would be needed to bring debt down to around 70 percent of GDP by 2033, as the authorities plan. This will necessitate an additional fiscal effort of at least ½ percent of GDP per year in FY27-28. Maintaining this primary surplus until debt declines to 60 percent of GDP can help bolster policy buffers against shocks and further reduce debt costs.

The credibility and feasibility of the adjustment hinges on specifying concrete, durable, and growth-friendly reforms, while protecting vulnerable groups.

• Reprioritizing and improving the efficiency and fairness of public spending is essential to support the adjustment and achieve social and political buy in. Building on ongoing efforts supported by spending reviews, the mission recommends reforms focused on: (i) improving the efficiency of procurement practices by finalizing the implementing regulations of the new Procurement Act, along with strengthening internal controls, transparency, and accountability, which are also key to reduce corruption; (ii) rationalizing the wage bill, building on ongoing efforts to incentivize early retirement, strengthen payroll integrity, and link pay with performance; (iii) limiting and linking transfers to state-owned enterprises to reform progress and operational improvements; (iv) streamlining underperforming, duplicate, and low-priority programs and entities; (v) better targeting subsidies; and (vi) further strengthening debt management and the financial management of transfers to provincial and local governments. Such measures would not only contribute to debt-reduction objectives but also create space for additional priority spending on public-infrastructure investment, primary education, and healthcare. Building on ongoing efforts to enhance verification processes and tackle fraud in the social-grants system, further bolstering efficiency and targeting can help ensure that benefits reach those most in need.
• Revenue measures could also be considered, if needed to support the adjustment or finance additional priority spending. Efforts made by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to raise tax collections and reduce tax debt are commendable and should continue, supported by advancements in digitalization and AI. South Africa’s tax revenue is already high and comparable to peers, with limited scope for significant gains. Potential revenue options include: curtailing tax expenditures that benefit mostly upper-income individuals; raising carbon tax rates, which can also support climate objectives; raising gambling taxes, as currently proposed; and considering additional social contributions if needed to finance the new health system or a redesigned social-relief-of-distress grant linked to job search.
• A fiscal rule anchored in a prudent debt ceiling can help underpin the consolidation and support policy credibility. A numerical debt rule—anchored in prudent debt targets (70 percent of GDP in the medium term and 60 percent in the long term), supported by expenditure and primary-balance rules, well-defined escape clauses, and an independent fiscal body—can help bolster the discipline, credibility, and predictability of fiscal policy, while reducing fiscal risks.

Monetary and Financial-Sector Policies

The adoption of a lower inflation target in the context of a strengthened inflation targeting framework is a major policy achievement. The shift to a lower 3 percent inflation target with a +/-1 percent tolerance band is welcome and expected to support macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability by reducing borrowing costs. In view of subdued inflation and downward-trending inflation expectations, the monetary policy stance remains appropriate. Looking forward, policy should continue to remain data driven and focused on guiding inflation expectations to the new target. Careful communication will be key to maintaining credibility and anchoring inflation expectations, while gradual implementation of the new target remains important to allow for flexibility in case of shocks.

The supervisory authorities have continued to manage financial-sector risks prudently. Systemic risks have increased this year, given higher global uncertainty and sizeable exposure of banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) to still rising government debt. Nonetheless, the banking system has remained sound and able to expand credit to the economy. It resiliency also reflects important progress made to strengthen crisis-management and prevention tools, such as the new banking-resolution framework, enhanced depositor protection, and stress testing. The phasing-in of a positive cycle-neutral countercyclical capital buffer in 2025 and the planned issuance of loss-absorbing liabilities over the medium term can further help bolster banks’ resilience to shocks.

Looking ahead, monitoring risks carefully and strengthening the supervision of banks and NBFIs remain essential to safeguard financial-sector stability. Risks from the sovereign-bank nexus should primarily be addressed through growth-friendly fiscal consolidation and continued monitoring and risk assessments of banks. Should such risks intensify, consideration could be given to additional prudential measures, while being mindful of potential unintended consequences on financial institutions’ balance sheets and securities markets. In view of sizeable interlinkages between banks and NBFIs, the mission supports the authorities’ efforts to assess system-wide interconnectedness and identify contagion risks and recommends enhancing reporting requirements for NBFIs and ensuring a consistent regulatory and supervisory approach for banks and non-banks.

Ensuring that the financial sector continues to support the economy, including by  providing efficient services, is equally important. A well-functioning financial sector not only depends on but also contributes to a healthy and strong economy through the provision of adequate credit and cost-effective financial services to firms and households. Addressing impediments to SME financing will require revisions of the National Credit Act, reforms of title deeds to unlock collateral, and sustained efforts to foster information sharing across financial institutions. Promoting venture capital and better connecting SMEs to capital markets would help expand SME’s funding options. The mission supports the authorities’ efforts to modernize the payments ecosystem and improve its efficiency by developing a digital payments infrastructure, allowing non-bank participation in the system, improving interoperability, and introducing a digital ID, which can also support tax compliance and prevent financial fraud and social-transfer misuse.  

South Africa’s recent removal from the FATF gray list marks an important milestone. This notable achievement reflects the significant progress made by the authorities to strengthen the AML/CFT framework by improving risk-based supervision of financial and non-financial sectors, establishing beneficial ownership registries for legal persons and legal arrangements, and collaborating across domestic and international agencies to investigate and prosecute complex money-laundering activities. The authorities are encouraged to continue to sustain these efforts.

Structural Reforms

The authorities have advanced structural reforms, albeit at a pace not yet commensurate with the economy’s needs to generate sustainable growth and jobs. Notable progress has been made under Operation Vulindlela to increase electricity generation, including from renewable sources, and allow for private-sector participation in freight rail and ports. New planned reforms aimed at improving local-government service delivery and governance, promoting digital public infrastructure, and addressing spatial disparities are also welcome. However, much remains to be done to fully implement these reforms and permanently lift growth to a level consistent with higher standards of living for all.

With fiscal space and state capacity limited, the private sector will need to drive job creation and growth over the medium run. The current state-led development model appears to have reached its limits in addressing South Africa’s low productivity, high unemployment, and widespread poverty and inequality. Moreover, the strained public finances constrain the ability of the government to support growth through public resources. Thus, unlocking the potential of the private sector through more ambitious structural reforms remains the only viable option to not only boost productivity and employment but also generate the sustained growth needed to achieve South Africa’s social objectives. 

The priority remains to swiftly implement ongoing electricity and logistics reforms allowing for competition through increased private-sector participation. Adequate and cost-effective electricity, railways, and ports are essential to support productive activity in all sectors and boost exports. In the electricity sector, efforts should focus on expediting the operationalization of the wholesale electricity market and ensuring fair competition, fully unbundling Eskom’s generation and transmission functions to ensure the latter’s operational and functional independence, expanding and modernizing the transmission grid, including through accelerating independent power-transmission projects, and developing sustainable operating models for municipalities. Private-sector participation in logistics requires strengthened governing legislation and credible freight-rail access rules, standardized rail and port-concession frameworks, and the establishment of an independent transport regulator. Both Eskom and Transnet should continue to improve their operational and financial performance to reduce dependence on the state.

In addition, an ambitious package of product-market, governance, and labor-market reforms is necessary to help unlock the private sector’s full job and growth potential. Staff analysis suggests that reforms closing half of South Africa’s structural gap with top emerging markets on business environment and governance could boost real output by up to 9 percent, lifting growth to around 3 percent in the medium term.

• Business environment: Burdensome regulations and red tape severely hinder firm—especially SME—productivity. The mission recommends reforms focused on streamlining licensing and permitting, including by establishing a national licensing framework, strengthening local authorities’ licensing capacity, introducing a public inventory of permits/licenses, and simplifying procurement procedures. Reducing regulatory uncertainty, including in the mining sector, can help support investment and growth. Further strengthening the competition-policy framework can also help lower barriers to firm entry and reduce costs.
• Governance and anti-corruption: Sustained efforts remain necessary to address corruption and governance weaknesses. Reforms should focus on establishing an independent Office of Public Integrity and Anti-Corruption, clarifying the mandates of law-enforcement agencies and strengthening accountability, and ensuring the financial and institutional independence of the National Prosecuting Authority. Maintaining an accurate and updated beneficial-ownership database and promoting whistleblower protection are equally important. At the same time, implementing transparent, merit-based selection and appointment of SOE boards and senior public-administration officials and bolstering local governments’ governance and service delivery, including for electricity and water, can help build public trust and support growth.
• Labor market: Complementary labor-market reforms are also needed to support job creation and reduce inequality. On the labor-supply side, addressing spatial inequality requires integrated reforms across housing policies, urban transport, and rural connectivity. Well-targeted mortgage and rental assistance programs and incentives to develop low-cost housing in high economic-activity areas, supported by zoning and building regulation reforms, will be key to support urban employment. Upgrading roads, improving public transit, and formalizing informal transport are also needed to help reduce prohibitively high commuting costs and improve access. Better tailoring active labor-market policies can also support job search and address skills mismatches. On the labor-demand side, shortening dispute-resolution procedures, further streamlining dismissal processes, and allowing for exemptions for SMEs from collective agreements will be key to allow firms to generate much needed jobs.
• Trade: Continuing to engage constructively on trade and enhancing trade diversification and regional integration can further help support resilience and growth. The mission supports the authorities’ efforts to continue exploring export opportunities, including deeper integration under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) through lowering non-tariff barriers and upgrading customs systems. To minimize fiscal risks and avoid market distortions and spillovers, any support measures to sectors affected by ongoing trade disruptions and tariffs should remain targeted and temporary. IMF analysis suggests that macroeconomic gains from industrial policy are generally modest, while broader structural reforms have significantly larger and more durable effects on value added.

The IMF mission team thanks the South African authorities and all other interlocutors for their hospitality and candid exchange of views.

 

 

South Africa: Selected Economic Indicators, 2024-28

 

Social and Demographic Indicators
GDP			Poverty (percent of population)
Nominal GDP (2024, billions of US dollars)	401		Below poverty line (3.65US$/day, 2023)				34
GDP per capita (2024, in US dollars)	6,253		Undernourishment (2022)				8
Population characteristics			Inequality (income shares unless oth. specified)
Total (2024, million)	63		Highest 10 percent of population (2017)				54
Urban population (2023, percent of total)	68		Lowest 40 percent of population (2017)				5
Life expectancy at birth (2023, number of years)	66		Gini coefficient (2017)				67
Economic Indicators
			2024	2025	2026	2027	2028
Title				Proj.
National Income and Prices
Real GDP (annual percentage change)			0.5	1.3	1.4	1.5	1.7
CPI (annual average, annual percentage change)			4.4	3.3	3.6	3.3	3.0
Output gap (percent of potential real GDP)			-0.3	-0.1	-0.1	0.0	0.0
Money and Credit
Broad money (annual percentage change)			6.7	5.3	5.4	4.8	4.7
Credit to the private sector (annual percentage change) 1/			4.4	5.3	5.4	4.8	4.7
Repo rate (percent, end-period) 6/			7.75	6.75	…	…	…
Labor Market
Unemployment rate (percent of labor force, annual average)			32.6	32.6	32.5	32.4	32.3
Savings and Investment (Percent of GDP)
Gross national saving			13.4	12.6	12.7	12.6	12.5
Investment 2/			14.1	13.5	13.8	14.0	14.2
Fiscal Position (Percent of GDP) 3/
Overall balance			-5.8	-5.8	-4.8	-4.4	-4.1
Primary balance			-0.5	-0.5	0.5	0.9	1.1
Gross government debt 4/			76.0	77.0	77.5	78.9	80.1
Balance of Payments (Billions of U.S. dollar Unless Otherwise Indicated)
Current account balance			-2.6	-3.9	-5.3	-7.2	-8.7
Gross reserves			65.5	72.1	72.1	72.1	72.1
in percent of GDP			16.3	16.7	15.2	14.6	14.0
in months of next year’s imports			6.2	6.0	5.7	5.4	5.2
in ARA in percent, excl. CFM			96.0	95.4	91.5	88.5	86.2
in ARA in percent, incl. CFM			107.4	107.3	102.9	99.6	97.1
Total external debt (percent of GDP)			42	45	45	46	48
Exchange Rates
Real effective exchange rate (percent change) 5/			3.9	0.8	…	…	…
Exchange rate (Rand/U.S. dollar, end-period) 6/			18.7	16.9	…	…	…
Memorandum Items
Nominal GDP (billions of U.S. dollar)			401	432	475	494	513
Sources: Haver, National Treasury, SARB, UNU WIDER, World Bank, and IMF staff calculations.
1/ Depository institution’s domestic claims on private sector in all currencies.
2/ Noisy inventories data are excluded from the investment breakdown to highlight fixed capital formation developments.
3/ Consolidated government as defined in the budget unless otherwise indicated.
4/ Covers national government, provincial governments, and social security funds.
5/ As of December 2025. A positive number represents depreciation and vice versa.
6/ Value for 2025 as of December 6, 2025.

 

Barry Morris and Deirdre Toner join Couchbase to advance product innovation and customer-focused execution

SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Couchbase, Inc., the developer database platform for critical applications in our AI world, today announced two senior leadership appointments that strengthen the company’s focus on accelerating its enterprise customer growth trajectory. Barry Morris has joined as Chief Product and Strategy Officer and Deirdre Toner has joined as President and Chief Commercial Officer.

Morris is a proven tech executive and data infrastructure industry veteran, with more than 30 years experience leading U.S. and European software businesses. He has scaled organizations to more than $1 billion in ARR, has built multiple data management companies, and brings extensive experience building category leaders. A customer-focused executive with a deep technology background, he most recently held leadership positions at Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Toner brings more than 30 years of experience driving high-growth sales teams and business development across companies of all sizes. Her background spans applications, data and infrastructure, with deep expertise in machine learning and generative AI. A customer-centric leader with a strong focus on scalable results, she joins Couchbase from AWS where she most recently served as General Manager of U.S. Specialty Sales. Toner has also held senior roles at DataStax and SAP.

“Barry and Deirdre bring incredible experience that aligns with where we are headed as a company, building on the strong foundation our team has created,” said BJ Schaknowski, CEO at Couchbase. “Their leadership will help strengthen our focus on product innovation, go-to-market excellence, world-class culture, delighting customers and operational discipline.”

“Data sits at the center of competitive advantage in an AI-driven world and strengthening data strategies for AI is now essential for every organization,” said Morris. “I joined Couchbase because of its long-standing commitment to innovation and its proven success across major enterprises. The company is uniquely positioned to support data and AI modernization at any scale, and I look forward to contributing to that mission.”

“Customers tell us they are under tremendous pressure to ready their data for AI in a manner that delivers real outcomes,” said Toner. “They want technology partners who understand their challenges and can help them move forward with confidence. Couchbase has built the scalable foundation required in this new AI-first era and proven its value across some of the most demanding environments. I’m excited to join because I believe in Couchbase’s mission and in the opportunity to support customers as they navigate the demands of today’s AI-driven landscape.”

About Couchbase
As industries race to embrace AI, traditional database solutions fall short of rising demands for versatility, performance and affordability. Couchbase is seizing the opportunity to lead with Capella, the developer database platform architected for critical applications in our AI world. By uniting transactional, analytical, mobile and AI workloads into a seamless, fully managed solution, Couchbase empowers developers and enterprises to build and scale applications and AI agents with confidence – delivering exceptional performance, scalability and cost-efficiency from cloud to edge and everything in between. Couchbase enables organizations to unlock innovation, accelerate AI transformation and redefine customer experiences wherever they happen. Discover why Couchbase is the foundation of critical everyday applications by visiting www.couchbase.com and following us on LinkedIn and X.

Couchbase^®, the Couchbase logo and the names and marks associated with Couchbase’s products are trademarks of Couchbase, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Couchbase, Inc.