For years, a familiar refrain has echoed across parts of South Africa: “Foreign Africans are stealing our jobs.” It has been shouted in protests, repeated in political speeches, amplified across social media, and, tragically, translated into violence against migrants from Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mozambique, and other African countries.

Shops have been looted. Businesses have been torched. Families have fled. Thousands have returned to their home countries, not by choice, but because they no longer felt safe. Yet as the dust settles, an inconvenient question refuses to go away: if fellow Africans were truly the problem, who is now doing the jobs they supposedly stole?

An even harder question follows: why are businesses struggling now that so many migrants have left? That question deserves an honest answer from the leaders of Operation Dudula and the March and March movement, the figures who head South Africa’s most prominent anti-immigrant and nationalist advocacy groups.

Recent reporting from international media and South African observers suggests that the exodus of migrant workers has exposed how dependent several sectors of the economy had become on their labour and entrepreneurship. Agriculture, construction, transport, retail, and food distribution are all beginning to feel the strain.

The irony is hard to miss. For years, migrants were blamed for taking jobs from locals. Today, many businesses cannot find people to replace them. That reality alone should force a rethink of the narrative that foreigners were solely responsible for South Africa’s unemployment crisis. That crisis did not begin when Nigerians, Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, or Ethiopians arrived, and it will not end now that many of them have left.

South Africa’s unemployment problem is rooted in structural issues: sluggish economic growth, a shrinking manufacturing base, chronic electricity shortages, weak investment, mismatched skills, and policy uncertainty, factors behind one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world. None of this was caused by a Somali or Ghanaian shop owner. None of it was caused by a Nigerian trader or a Zimbabwean artisan.

Blaming migrants for the troubles facing township businesses only distracts from these deeper issues. When foreign-owned spaza shops, South Africa’s neighbourhood convenience stores, began closing after weeks of anti-immigrant protests, many township residents assumed the only change would be who owned the till. Instead, they found themselves paying more for everyday essentials. The resulting price hikes have fuelled heated debate on social media, where videos of foreign shopkeepers packing up and leaving have dominated public conversation.

Beneath the political noise lies a bigger business story. The real contest for South Africa’s estimated R900 billion ($53.6 billion) township economy will not be settled by nationality. According to government officials and fintech companies, the future of local spaza shops will hinge on their ability to adopt digital payments, use merchant data, access embedded finance, and build more efficient supply chains. Those factors, not who owns the shop, will decide whether township retailers can stay affordable and viable.

That alone is a troubling story. But the most revealing findings are the ones documenting the unintended economic fallout of driving migrants out.

Reuters has reported that construction, farming, retail, and transport rely heavily on migrant labour, warning that their departure could deepen labour shortages and slow economic activity. The report also cited earlier research showing that migrants contribute meaningfully to South Africa’s GDP without necessarily displacing local workers. None of this should come as a surprise.

Before the recent wave of hostility, township retail strips were dotted with foreign-owned grocery stores, restaurants, tailoring shops, salons, mechanics’ workshops, and convenience stores. These businesses did not simply employ fellow foreigners, many employed South Africans, rented from South African landlords, bought stock from South African wholesalers, paid municipal charges, and fed local supply chains.

Forcing such businesses to close hurts South Africans nearly as much as it hurts migrants. One Nigerian businessman put it plainly: if he shut down and left, dozens of South Africans working for him would lose their jobs too. That statement should provoke reflection, not anger.

Economic activity is interconnected. When one business closes, suppliers lose customers, landlords lose tenants, transport operators lose passengers, consumers lose access to goods, workers lose income, and communities lose investment. No economy prospers by driving away productive people. None.

To be clear, every sovereign nation has the right to enforce its immigration laws. Illegal immigration should be addressed through lawful institutions, not mob justice. Anyone who commits a crime, citizen or foreigner, should be arrested, prosecuted, and punished under the

law. But criminality should never be used to stigmatize an entire nationality or continent. Collective blame is neither justice nor policy.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has himself warned against scapegoating migrants and cautioned citizens against taking the law into their own hands. But the danger here goes beyond economics.

South Africa has long presented itself as a champion of African solidarity. Its liberation struggle inspired millions across the continent. Many African nations, including Nigeria, gave political, diplomatic, and material support to the anti-apartheid movement. That shared history makes today’s hostility all the more painful. Africans should not become enemies within Africa.

The African Continental Free Trade Area envisions deeper economic integration, freer movement of trade, and stronger regional cooperation. Persistent xenophobia undermines all of it. Investment follows stability. Entrepreneurs seek certainty. Workers seek safety. Tourists seek welcoming destinations. Hostility drives all four away.

Ultimately, South Africa must confront a difficult truth. If thousands of African migrants have left, yet unemployment remains stubbornly high and businesses are struggling to fill the gaps they left behind, then foreigners were never the principal problem. The real culprits are decades of weak growth, inadequate job creation, governance failures, infrastructure constraints, and policy shortcomings.

It is easier to blame outsiders. It is harder to confront structural realities. But only one of those paths leads anywhere.

South Africa’s future will not be secured by emptying shops of fellow Africans. It will be secured by filling factories with investment, classrooms with skills, power stations with reliable electricity, and boardrooms with policies that inspire confidence.

Until then, the question will keep haunting the nation: if fellow Africans were stealing jobs, who own closed South Africa’s shops?