Formal / Informal Linkages in South Africa: Some Considerations
Informal employment in South Africa grew from 965,000 to just over 2.3-million workers between 1997 and 2005, rising from about 10% to 18% of the employed workforce. Notwithstanding the difficulties and debates about data issues, it is widely accepted that informal employment grew rapidly in the late 1990s, and stabilised in the 2000s. In this…
read more >>Informal Employment In South Africa
Employment policy in South Africa has paid limited attention to the informal economy. From the early 1990s, the informal economy grew substantially, and yet still accounts for a small proportion of employment relative to other developing countries. The co-existence of high unemployment and a small informal economy is poorly understood in SA. Valodia explores the…
read more >>Formal-Informal Economy Linkages and Unemployment in South Africa
South Africa’s high involuntary unemployment and small informal sector are attributed to an underperforming formal sector and barriers to entry into the informal sector. Davies and Thurlow examine the economy-wide linkages between the formal and informal economies, while accounting for different types of informal activities. A multi-region, empirically calibrated computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is…
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