Employment Scenarios for the Public Service in South Africa
The public service is a significant source of employment in South Africa, accounting for about 13% to 14% of formal employment. Until recently, it played a diminishing role, dampening employment growth in the economy. What should its role be in employment creation, if any? This is a particularly important question in the context of high…
read more >>Earnings Inequality in South Africa, 1995 – 2003
Woolard and Woolard use October Household Survey and Labour Force Survey data to establish whether the real earnings gap between highly skilled and low-skilled workers in the formal sector of the South African economy narrowed or widened between 1995 and 2003. It also assesses changes in the earnings gap between whites and other race groups,…
read more >>The Impact of HIV/Aids
Vass assesses the impact of HIV/AIDS on the South African labour market. While a number of socio-economic factors affect human resources development, HIV/AIDS has a disproportionately negative impact on the economically active population, on Africans and on women. Thus it exacerbates existing structural inequalities. The impact is projected to occur unevenly across companies and sectors,…
read more >>Employment and skills in South African Exports
Van Seventer reports on the labour absorption of South Africa’s exports, using a simple configuration based on a first-generation social accounting matrix (SAM). It compares the labour absorption of exports with that of domestic demand, and also discusses labour absorption by destination market. A distinction is made between full backward linkages and those where supply…
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