“The Day the Work Stopped”: Inside South Africa’s Sudden, Shocking Labor Collapse After Migrants Left immigrants.live — July 8, 2026 I. The Silence After Sunrise At dawn, Johannesburg’s industrial district sounded wrong. No forklifts. No shouting foremen. No rumble of delivery trucks. Just a long, unmoving line of people — hundreds of South Africans waiting outside a hiring center that used to process migrant workers. By noon, the line wrapped around the block. By evening, it