Majority of Dysselsdorp’s workers are employed in the agricultural industry or work in the nearby town of Oudtshoorn.

[7] It served as a place of religious instruction and refuge for emancipated slaves and Khoekhoen inhabitants in the Little Karoo.

[2] In 1972, during the Apartheid era, residents inhabiting the area around Dysselsdorp were dispossessed of their residential and agricultural property.

[10] In 1985 there was an arson attack on a municipal building and in 1991 there was illegal occupation of the Dysselsdorp Police Station by ANC members as part of their Struggle against Apartheid.

[10][12] In 2011 the former President Jacob Zuma visited the town to launch the National Rural Youth Service Corps, however this program has changed little the socio-economic conditions of many young people in Dysselsdorp.

[17] Economic upliftment programmes such as the Comprehensive Rural Development have been launched in Dysselsdorp,[19] however they end up failing.