The figures are for the month prior to unprecedented power outages which impacted the mining industry in December. Stats SA said the largest negative contributor was platinum group metals, down 13.5% and contributing negative 3.6 percentage points.
Iron ore and coal were down 7.5% and 0.7 percentage points and 2.8% and 0.7% respectively.
Stats SA said "other" non-metallic minerals were a significant positive contributor, up 20.5% and contributing 1.2 percentage points.
Seasonally adjusted, mining production for November was down 3.5% on a year earlier.
However mineral sales jumped 5.8% year-on-year, led by PGMs up 36.5% and contributing 8.4 percentage points, followed by gold which was up 64% and 6.7 percentage points.
The country's resources sector will be in the spotlight with the annual African Mining Indaba in Cape Town on in two weeks' time.