The Decent Work Agenda in Southern Africa: Evidence and Challenges
The decent work agenda initiated by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 1999 seeks to promote employment and productive work, workers’ rights, social protection and social dialogue. Ncube examines the experiences of nine southern African countries in terms of the decent work agenda, focusing on employment and productive work. The paper notes a lack of…
read more >>Revisiting South African Employment Trends in the 1990’s
This article revisits South African employment trends recorded since 1995. In particular, it investigates whether the job losses and gains recorded by the October Household Survey jobs in the mid-1990s reflect the reality. This is done by comparing the different official data sets, and by exploring alternative sources of information for three sectors that substantially…
read more >>Formal/Informal Linkages in South Africa: Some Considerations
To know how the economy might meet the target of halving unemployment by 2014, the Employment Scenarios project investigated how the informal sector might grow. How much of the employment target is likely to be reached through growth in the informal economy? Is the informal sector likely to continue growing in the period leading up…
read more >>Exploring Economic Behaviour in South Africa’s Informal Economy
“This report contributes to a larger project of the Human Sciences Research Council, the School of Development Studies and IFPRI, which seeks to understand the competitive behaviour of informal firms in a growing economy. The main components of the project are a background conceptual paper; a social accounting matrix (SAM) that explores the relationship between…
read more >>Background to Employment Scenarios
The Human Sciences Research Council’s Evidence-Based Employment Scenarios project was established to develop feasible scenarios of the economic structure to meet the goal of reducing unemployment by half between 2004 and 2014. It aims to identify the path and policy complements required to achieve these scenarios, as well as their political, financial and bureaucratic implications….
read more >>Administered Prices Study on Economic Inputs: Executive Summary – Ports, Rail, Water
“This is the executive summary of an extensive report examining the prices of goods and services provided by entities owned by the South African government in water, rail and ports. Prices in these three sectors are referred to as ‘administered’ due to the public ownership of the entities providing them. Furthermore, each sector provides important…
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