Namibians welcome migrants as neighbours but not in the job market

Summary

In Afrobarometer Policy Paper No. 108, dated 8 October 2026, Namibia's national investigator Christiaan Keulder examines attitudes to migrant workers in a country expecting a resource boom from oil and green hydrogen investment. The data come from the migration module of the Round 10 survey conducted in Namibia in early 2024. The results are compared with 14 neighbours in the Southern African Development Community. According to the author, the country's last dedicated survey on the subject dates back to 2002.

The findings show a sharp split. Some 83% of Namibians support trade with all countries or the whole continent, 80% would not mind a foreign worker as a neighbour, and 56% endorse free movement within Southern Africa. Yet only 48% see migrants' economic impact as neutral or positive. Support for increasing or maintaining the entry of foreign job seekers stands at just 23%, and at 21% for refugees.

Keulder argues that this restrictiveness is not a grievance of the poor, the unemployed or border communities but a consensus spread across society. Roughly three-quarters want fewer or no foreign job seekers. The author sorts respondents into three groups: consensus restrictionists at 60%, a 20% that is cosmopolitan in principle but closed to labour entry, and a young, urban 20% of labour liberals. In comparison, Namibia is socially tolerant but economically restrictive, while South Africa presents a hostile profile on both dimensions.

The author concludes that economic growth alone will not ease this anxiety. The weight falls on the credibility of local content policy and the visible Namibianisation of the workforce. Keulder writes that this picture strains continental goals such as the African Continental Free Trade Area and the African Union's stalled free movement protocol. The state, he notes, has begun cautiously using local content tools.